
.3 
Book_.tm 

Copyright N^ 



COPYRIGflT DEPOSIT. 



THE CHILD'S 



STORY or OIR GOINT 



FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PRESENT DAY 



Giving in Simple Languctge a Connected Story of the 
Discovery, Settlement and Growth of the Country, with 
Graphic Pen Pictures of Men and Events which have 
made a Great Republic of Forty /-five States with its New 
Possessions in the East and West Indies. 



BY 



CHARLES MORRIS, LL.D. 

Author of "Th- Greater lOepublic," "The Child's 5tory of the Nineteenth Century," Etc. 



Embellished with Four Colored Plates, Full Page Half= 

Tone Engravings and Numerous Portraits 

and Other Hiustrations 



WORLD BIBLE HOUSE 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. 






THE LIBRARY OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Ctit-its Received 

OCT. 11 1901 

COPVRIOHT ENTRY 

CLASSO' XX«7 No. 

COPY a. 



F. ir.-rp<I a.-.rordln- to Art of Colore-- \n the y. .u 1001. by 

GEO. A. PARKER 

111 th.r offi. .; oC til." l.il.rarinn of Coimre-s. at Wa-.liiii.;i..ii, I). C. 




A Talk with the Young Reader About 
the History of Our Country 




F any of the readers of this book should have the 
chance to take a raikoad ride over the vast 
region of the United States, from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific Ocean, from the Great Lakes to the 
Gulf of Mexico, they would see a wonderful 
display of cities and towns, of factories and farms, and a great 
multitude of men and women actively at work. They v^ould 
behold, spread out on every side, one of the busiest and hap- 
piest lands the sun shines upon. Here and there, amid the 
miles on miles of farms, they might see a forest, here and there 
a wild beast, here and there a red-faced Indian, one of the old 
people of the land ; but these would be almost lost in the rich 
and prosperous scene. 

If our young traveller knew nothing of history he might 
fancy that it had been always this way, or that it had taken 
thousands of years for all those cities to be built and these 
great fields to be cleared and cultivated. Yet if he had been 



viii PREFACE 

here only three hundred years ago he would have seen a very 
different sight. He could not then have gone over the coun- 
try by railroad, for such a thing had never been thought of. 
He could not have gone by high road, for there was not a 
road of any kind in the whole length and breadth of the land. 
Nowhere in this vast country would he have seen a city or 
town ; nowhere a ploughed field, a farm-house, 
ree un re ^^ ^ |^^^^ . nowhere a horse, cow, or sheep ; 

nowhere a man with a white or a black face. 
Instead of great cities he would have seen only clusters of 
rude huts ; instead of fertile farms, only vast reaches of forest ; 
instead of tame cattle, only wild and dangerous beasts ; instead 
of white and black men, only red-skinned savages. 

Just think of it ! All that we see around us is the work of 
less than three hundred years ! No doubt many of you have 
read in fairy tales of wonderful things done by the Genii of the 
East, of palaces built in a night, of cities moved miles away 
from their sites. But here is a thing as wonderful and at the 
same time true, a marvel wrought by men instead of magical 
beings. These great forests have fallen, these great fields 
have been cleared and planted, these great cities have risen, 
these myriads of white men have taken the place of the red 
men of the wild woods, and all within a period not longer than 
three times the life of the oldest men now living. Is not this 
as wonderful as the most marvellous fairy tale ? And is it not 
better to read the true tale of how this was done than stories 
of the work of fairies and magicians ? Let us forget the 
Genii of the East; men are the Genii of the West, and the 
magic of their work is as great as that we read of in the fables 
of the "Arabian Nights." 

The story of this great work is called the '' History of the 
United States." This story you have before you in the book 
you now hold. You do not need to sit and dream how the 



PREFACE 



IX 



wonderful work of building our noble nation was done, for you 
can read it all here in language simple enough for the youngest 
of you to understand. Here you are told how white men came 
over the seas and found beyond the waves a land none of them 
had ever seen before. You are told how they settled on these 
shores, cut down the trees and built villages and 
towns, fought with the red men and drove them l^""**'"f .^"'' 

^ Noble Nation 

back, and made themselves homes in the midst 
of fertile fields. You are told how others came, how they 
spread wider and wider over the land, how log-houses grew 
into mansions, and villages into cities, and how at length 
they fought for and gained their liberty. 

Read on and you will learn of more wonderful things still. 
The history of the past hundred years is a story of magic 
for our land. In it you will learn of how the steamboat 
was first made and in time came to be seen on all our 
rivers and lakes ; of how the locomotive was invented and 
railroads were built, until they are now long enough in 
our country to go eight times round the earth ; of the marvels 
of the telegraph and telephone — the talking wire ; of the 
machines that rumble and roar in a thousand factories and 
work away like living things, and of a multitude of marvels 
which I cannot begin to speak of here. 

And you will learn how men kept on coming, and wars 
were fought, and new land was gained, and bridges were 
built, and canals were dug, and our people increased and 
spread until we got to be one of the greatest 
nations on the earth, and our cities e^rew until r"""^".*"^*". . 

° Boys and uirls 

one of them was the largest in the world ex- 
cept the vast city of London. All this and more you may 
learn from the pages of this book. It is written for the boys 
and girls of our land, but many of their fathers and mothers 
may find it pleasant and useful to read. 



X PREFACE 

There are hundreds who do not have time to read large 
histories, which try to tell all that has taken place. For those 
chis little history will be of great service, in showing them 
how, from a few half-starved settlers on a wild coast, this great 
nation has grown up. But I need say no more. The book 
has its own story to tell. I only lay this introduction before 
you as a handy stepping-stone into the history itself By its 
aid you may cross the brook and wander on through the 
broad land which lies before you. 




•Model op 

U.S. /^AN OP War 

•BuiLT-fOR-C;(hiBlJ- AT- WoRLo5-FaiR 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



PREFACE 



CHAPTER I 

Columbus, the Great Sailor 

Bold Sailors of the Northern Countries — The Northmen— Columbus the 
Little Boy — Columbus and the Egg — He Crosses the Atlantic, Braves 
the Sea and Discovers New Land 17 

CHAPTER II 

Three Great Discoverers 

John and Sebastian Cabot — Balboa Discovers the Pacific — The Fountain of 

Youth and Ponce de Leon — The Naming of America 29 

CHAPTER III 

Three Heroes of Enterprise 

The Story of John Smith and First English Settlement — Miles Standish and 

the Pilgrims— Roger Williams, the Hero Preacher ......... 37 

CHAPTER IV 

How the Dutch and Quakers Came to America 

Captain Hudson and His Ship, the Half Moon — The Trip up the Hudson — 
Adventures with the Indians — William Penn and the Quakers — How 
They Settled on the Delaware River ..... 48 

CHAPTER V 

Cavalier Colonies of the South 

The Cavaliers and Lords of England — They Settle in Virginia — The Catholics 
Come to Maryland — Strange Form of Government in Carolina — Paupers 
Settle Georgia — An Old Spanish Town in Florida 57 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VI 

The Red Men, How They Lived and were Treated 

They Were the First Americans — Their Strange Customs and Manners — How 

They Followed a Trail — How They Fought — Indian Massacres .... 6g 

CHAPTER VII 

Loyal Governors and Loyal Captains 

How the Governor was Treated in Connecticut — The Charter Oak — An 

Exciting Time in Virginia . ^c 

CHAPTER VIII 

Old Times in the Colonies 

When a Tallow Candle Gave the Light — Old-Time Houses — The Story ot 

the Famous Hnnter, and How he Escaped from the Indians S4 

CHAPTER IX 

A Hero of the Colonies 

Two Boys who Crossed the Mountains — Their Adventures with the Indians 
— George Washington, the Surveyor — Messenger to the French — An Old- 
Time Hero 92 

CHAPTER X 

The French and Indian War 

The Arcadians — Their Home in Nova Scotia — Their Suflferings — The Story 
of Evangeline — Why the Indians Helped the French — The Story of a 
Cruel War loi 

CHAPTER XI 

The Cause of the Revolution 

How the Trouble Began — The Americans Object to Paying Taxes on Various 
Articles — The Famous Boston Tea Party — Battle of Lexington — Decla- 
ration of Independence 109 

CHAPTER XII 

Fighting for Freedom 

Washington the Commander-in-Chief — Bunker Hill — The Wonderful Christ- 
mas — The Americans Succeed — They Met Defeat — " Betty Stark a 
Widow" — Help from France 119 



TABLE OF CONTENTS adi 

CHAPTER XIII 
Paul Jones, the Naval Hero of the Revolution 

Old-Time Warships — A Daring Deed — A Great Sea Fight — The British 

Captain Surrenders 127 

CHAPTER XIV 

flarion, the Swamp Fox 

How the War Went in the South — The Patriots Hard to Find — The Britisk 
Ofificers Eat Sweet Potatoes — ^Jack Davis' Adventure — General Greene 
and his Famous Retreat — Cornwallis Surrenders — The War at an End . 135 

CHAPTER XV 

The Voyage of our Ship of State 

How the People Rule — Illustrated by a Story — Our First Trial and Failure 
— Making a New Form of Government — A Nation of Thirteen States — 
The President — The Congress — The Judges 143 

CHAPTER XVI 

The End of a Noble Life 

Washington the First President — Beloved by Everyone — Benjamin Frank- 
lin's Last Hours — Money They Used to Use — How the Quarrel was 
Settled — Washington Dies 150 

CHAPTER XVII 

The Steamboat and the Cotton Gin 

The Power of Steam — Is a Boat Like a Duck — Who Thought of the First 
Steamboat — The Cotton Gin and How it Saves Labor — Where the Cot- 
ton Grows o . . . 156 

CHAPTER XVIII 

How the English and Americans Fought Again 

How We Came to Quarrel with England — Protectiag the American Sailor — 

Interesting Land Battles — Adventures at Sea — Peace is Made Again . , 163 

CPIAPTER XIX 
How the Victims of the Alamo were Avenged 

How General Santa Anna Got into Trouble^Massacre of the Alamo — The 
Famous Samuel Houston — War with Mexico — The City of Mexico — 
Santa Anna is Defeated and United States is Victorious 171 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XX PAGs 

How Slavery Led to War 

Black and White Slaves — First Slaves Brought to America in 1619 — Why 
the Slaves were Used in the South — Why the North did not Believe in 
Slavery — What the Word Abolitionist Means — ^John Brown and Har- 
per's Ferry 179 

CHAPTER XXI 

How Lincoln Became President 

The Ruler of the Republic — The President Chosen from the People — Why 
the People Liked Him — Lincoln's School Days — The North and South 
Differ — Lincoln, the Great War President 185 

CHAPTER XXII 

The Great Civil War 

What Civil War Is— Where the War was Fought— Battle of Bull Run— 
"Stonewall" Jackson — General Ulysses S. Grant and How He Came 
to Command the Army — His ' ' Unconditional Surrender ' ' Message — 
Battle of Gettysburg 191 

CHAPTER XXIII 

War on 5ea and Land 

Fight Between the ' ' Cheesebox ' ' and the Ram — How the Monitor Won the 
Fight— The Battle ' ' Above the Clouds ' '—Battle of the Wilderness — 
Sherman's March to the Sea — Richmond Surrenders and the War Closes 201 

CHAPTER XXIV 

The Waste of War and the Wealth of Peace 

What is Seen on the Picture of History — A Reign of Peace in America — 
The Ocean Cable and the Railroad — Alaska and its Treasures — The 
Burning of Chicago and other Disasters — Edison and His Work — The 
Triumphs of Electricity 209 

CHAPTER XXV 
The Marvels of Invention 

Professor Morse, the Famous Inventor — His Struggles and His Success — 
The First Message — Telephone and Other Inventions of Electricity- 
New Ideas in Machinery and tne Comfort they Bring 219 

CHAPTER XXVI 

How the Century Ended for the United States 

The Nation's Birthplace — Centennial Exhibition and Columbian World's 
Fair — Our People's Progress — The Indians — Trouble in Cuba — War 
with Spain — Santiago and its Fleet — Dewey at Manila 227 



CHAPTER I 




Columbus, the Great Sailor 

F any of my young readers live in Chicago they will 
remember a wonderful display in that city in 
1893. Dozens of great white buildings rose on 
the shore of the lake, as beautiful as fairy palaces, 
and filled with the finest of goods of all kinds, 
which millions of people came to see. 

Do you know what this meant? It was what is called 
a World's Fair, and was in honor of a wonderful event that 
took place four hundred years before. 

Some of you may think that white men have always 
lived in this country. I hope you do not all think so, for this 
is not the case. A little more than four hundred years ago 
no white man had ever seen this country, and none knew that 
there was such a country on the face of the earth. 

It was in the year 1492, that a daring sailor, named 
Christopher Columbus, crossed a wide ocean and came to 
this' new and wonderful land. Since then men have come 
here by the millions, and the mighty republic of the United 
States has grown up with its hundreds of towns and cities. 
In one of these, which bears the name of Chicago, the grand 
Columbian World's Fair was held, in honor of the discovery 
of America by the great navigator four hundred years before. 

This is what I have set out to tell you about. I am sure 
you will all be glad to know how this broad and noble land, 
once the home of the wild red men, was discovered and 
made a home for the white people of Europe. 

17 



i8 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 



The Northmen's 
Discovery 



Some of you may. have been told that America was 
really discovered more than four hundred years before 
Columbus was born. So it was. At that time 
some of the bold sailors of the northern coun- 
tries of Europe, who made the stormy ocean 
their home, and loved the roll of the waves, had come to the 
frozen island of Iceland. And a ship from Iceland had been 
driven by the winds to a land in the far west which no man 
had ever seen before. Was this not America ? 

Soon after, in the year 
I GOO, one of these North- 
men, named Leif Ericson, 
also known as Leif the 
Lucky, set sail for this new 
land. There he found wild 
grapes growing, and from 
them he named it Vineland. 
He also called it Wineland 
the Good. 

After him came others, 
and there was fighting with 
the red men, whom they 
called Skrellings. In the 
end the Northmen left the 
country, and before many years all was forgotten about it. 
Only lately the story has been found again in some old writings. 
And so time went on for nearly five hundred years more, and 
nothing was known in Europe about the land beyond the seas. 
Now let us go from the north to the south of Europe. 
Here there is a kingdom called Italy, which 
runs down into the Mediterranean Sea almost 
in the shape of a boot. On the western shore 
of this kingdom is a famous old city named Genoa, in which 




CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS 



The Home of 
Columbus 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 



19 



many daring sailors have dwelt ; and here, long ago, lived a 
man named Columbus, a poor man, who made his living by- 
carding wool. 

This poor wool-carder had four children, one of whom 
(born about 1436) he named Christopher. 
Almost everybody who has been at school in ^ardrr"****' 
the world knows the name of this little Italian 
boy, for he became one of the most famous of men. 

Many a boy in our times has to help his father in his 
shop. The great Benjamin Franklin began work by pouring 
melted tallow into moulds to make 
candles. In the same way little 
Columbus had to comb wool for his 
father, and very likely he got as tired 
of wool as Franklin did of candles. 

The city he lived in was full of 
sailors, and no doubt he talked to 
many of them about life on the wild 
waters, and heard so many stories of 
danger and adventure that he took 
the fancy to go to sea himself. 

At any rate we are told that he 
became a sailor when only fourteen 
years old, and made long and daring 

voyages while he was still young. Some of those were in 
Portuguese ships down the coast of Africa, of 
which continent very little was known at that ^ "^^""^ 

.• TT . ,1 Sailor Boy 

time. He went north, too ; some think as far 

as Iceland. Who knows but what he was told there of 

what the Northmen had done ? 

Columbus spent some time in the island of Madeira, far 
out in the Atlantic ocean, and there the people told him of 
strange things they had seen. These had come over the seas 




CARAVELS OF COLUMBUS 



30 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 



before the west winds and floated on their island shores. 
Among them were pieces of carved wood, and canes so 
long that they would hold four quarts of wine between their 
joints. And the dead bodies of two men had also come 
ashore, whose skins were the color of bronze or copper. 

These stories set Columbus thinking. He was now a 
man, and had read many books of travel, and had studied all 
that was then known of geography. For a time he lived by 
making maps and charts for ship captains. This was in the 




A VIKING SHIP 

city of Lisbon, in Portugal, were he married and settled down 
and had little boys of his own. 

At that time some of the most learned people had odd 
notions about the earth. You may have seen globes as round 
as an orange, with the countries laid out on them. But 
the people then had never seen such a globe, and the most of 
them thought that the earth was as flat as a table, and that any 
one who sailed too far over the ocean would come to the 
edge of the earth and fall off. 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 



21 



This seems very absurd, does it not? But you must 
remember that people then knew very little about the earth 
they lived on, and could not understand how people could 
keep on a round globe like flies on a ball of glass. 

But there were some who thought the earth to be round, 
and Columbus was one of these. 

At that time silk and spices and other rich goods were 
brought from China and India, thousands of miles to the east, 
by caravans that traveled overland. Columbus thought that 




RUDDER, SHIELD AND DRAGON HEAD OF A VIKING SHIP 

by sailing west, over the Droad Atlantic, he would come to 
these far countries, just as a fly may walk around the surface 
of an orange, and come to the place it started from. 

The more Columbus thought about this, the more certain 
he became that he was right. He was so sure of it that he set 
out to try and make other people think the same way. He 
w^anted ships with which to sail across the unknown seas to the 
west, but he had no money of his own to buy them with. 



22 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 



Ah ! what a task poor Columbus now had. For years 
and years he wandered about among the kings and princes of 
Europe, but no one would believe his story, and many laughed 
at him and mocked him. 

First he tried Genoa, the city where he was born, but the 
people there told him he was a fool or had lost his senses. 




COLUMBUS AND THE EGG 



Then he went to the king of Portugal. This king was a 

rascal, and tried to cheat him. He got his plans from him, 

and sent out a vessel in secret, hoping to get 

Columbus Tries ^j^^ ^^^^^ ^^ ^j^^ discovcry for himself But 

to Interest . ■' 

Others the captam he sent was a coward and was 

scared by the rolling waves. He soon came 

back, and told the king that there was nothing to be found but 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 



23 



water and storm. King John, of Portugal, was' very sorry 
afterward that he had tried to rob Columbus of his honor. 

Columbus was very angry when he heard what the king 
had done. He left Portugal for Spain, ^^ and tried to get 
the king and queen of that country 
to let him have ships and 
sailors. But they were at 
war with a people 
called the Moors, 
and had no 
money to 
spare for v 
anything but '\ 
fighting and v ' 
killing. 

Columbus 
stayed there for 
seven long years. 
He talked to the 
wise men, but they 
made sport of him. ^ 
"Ifthe earth is round," 
they said, "and you v 
sail west, your ships will 
go down hill, and they will 
have to sail up hill to come 
back. No ship that was ever 
made can do that. And you may 
come to places where the waters 
boil with the great heat of the sun ; and frightful monsters 
may rise out of the sea and swallow your ships and your 
men." Even the boys in the street got to laughing at him 
and mocking him as a man who had lost his wits. 




COLUMBUS SEEKING HELP 



24 COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 

After these many years Columbus got tired of trying in 
Spain. He now set out for France, to see what the king of 
that country would do. He sent one of his brothers to 
England to see its king and ask him for aid. 

He was now so poor that he had to travel along the dusty 

roads on foot, his little son going with him. One day he 

stopped at a convent called La Rabida, to beg 

Columbus at u j r i. • i. i 

the Convent some bread lor his son, who was very hungry. 

The good monks gave bread to the boy, 
and while he was eating it the prior of the convent came out 
and talked with Columbus, asking him his business. Colum- 
bus told him his story. He told it so well that the prior 
believed in it. He asked him to stay there Avith his son, and 
said he would write to Isabella, the queen of Spain, whom he 
knew very well. 

So Columbus stayed, and the prior wrote a letter to the 
queen, and in the end the wandering sailor was sent for to 
come back to the king's court. 

Queen Isabella deserves much of the honor of the dis- 
covery of America. The king would not listen to the wan- 
dering sailor, but the queen .offered to pledge her jewels to 
raise the money which he needed for ships and sailors. 

Columbus had won. After years and years of toil and 

hunger and disappointment, he was to have 

Q ^ j^ I ships and sailors and supplies, and to be given 

a chance to prove whether it was he or the 

wise men who were the fools. 

But such ships as they gave him ! Why, you can see far 
better ones every day, sailing down your rivers. Two of 
them did not even have decks, but were like open boats. 
With this small fleet Columbus set sail from Palos, a little 
port in Spain, on the 3d of August, 1492, on one of the most 
wonderful voyages that has ever been known. 



COLUMBUS. THE GREAT SAILOR 



25 



Away they went far out into the " Sea of Darkness," as 
the Atlantic ocean was then called. Mile after mile, league 
after league, day after day, on and on they went, seeing 
nothing but the endless waves. A\hile the wind drove them 
steadily into the unknown west. 

The sailors never expected to see their wives and children 
again. They were frightened when they started, and every 




COLUMBUS IN CHAINS 



day they grew more scared. They looked with staring eyes 
for the bleak fogs or the frightful monsters of which they had 
been told. At one place they came upon great tracts of sea- 
weed, and thought they were in shallow water and would be 
wrecked on banks of mud. Then the compass, to which they 
trusted, ceased to point due north and they were more fright- 
ened than ever. Soon there was hardly a stout heart in the 
fleet except that of Columbus. 



26 COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 

The time came when the sailors grew half mad with fear. 
Some of them made a plot to throw Columbus overboard and 
sail home again. They would tell the people there that he 
had fallen into the sea and been drowned. 

It wa? a terrible thing to do, was it not ? But desperate 
men will do dreadful things. They thought one man had 
better die than all of them. Only good fortune saved the life 
of the great navigator. 

One day a glad sailor called his comrades and pointed 
over the side. A branch of a green bush was floating by with 
fresh berries on it. It looked as if it had just been broken 
off a bush. Another day one of them picked from the water 
a stick which had oeen carved with a knife. Land birds were 
seen flying over the ships. Hope came back to their hearts. 
They were sure now that land must be near. 

October nth came. When night fell dozens of men 

were on the look-out. Each wanted to be the 
The Longed for ^ , , i . , ,111 - ^ 

Land hn Sight ^^^ ^^ ^^^ land. About 10 o clock that night, 

Columbus, who was looking out over the waves, 
saw a light far off. It moved up and down like a lantern car- 
ried in a man's hand. 

Hope now grew strong. Every eye looked out into the 
darkness. About two o'clock in the morning came the glad 
cry of •' Land ! Land ! " A gun was fired from the leading 
vessel. One of its sailors had seen what looked like land in 
the moonlight. You may be sure no one slept any more 
that night. 

When daylight came the joyful sailors saw before them 
a low, green shore, on which the sunlight lay in beauty ; men 
and women stood on it, looking in wonder at the ships, 
which they thought must be great white-winged birds. They 
had never seen such things before. We can hardly imagine 
what we would have done under similar circumstances. 



COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAILOR 27 

When the boats from the ships came to the shore, and 
Columbus landed, clad in shining armor, and 
bearing the great banner of Spain, the simple j^^^g 
natives fell to the ground on their faces. They 
thought the gods had come from heaven to visit them. 

Some of the red-skinned natives wore ornaments of 
gold. They were asked by signs where they had got this gold, 
and pointed south. Soon all were on board again, the ships 
once more spread their sails, and swiftly they flew southward 
before the wind. 

Day by day, as they went on, new islands arose, some 
small, some large, all green and beautiful. Columbus 
thought this must be India, which he had set out to find, 
and he called the people Indians. He never knew that it was 
a new continent he had discovered. 

The month of March of the next year came before the little 
fleet sailed again into the port of Palos. The people hailed 
it with shouts of joy, for they had mourned their friends as dead. 

Fast spread the news. When Columbus entered Barce- 
lona, where the king and queen were, bringing with him new 
plants birds and animals, strange weapons, golden orna- 
ments, and some of the red-skinned natives, he was received 
as if he had been a king. He was seated beside the king ; 
he rode by his side in the street; he was made a grandee of 
Spain ; all the honors of the kingdom were showered on him. 

We here recall the incident of Columbus and the ^gg. A 
dinner was given in his honor and many great men were there. 
The attention Columbus received made some 
people jealous. One of them with a sneer asked ^^^\^^^^^ 
Columbus if he did not think any one else could 
have discovered the Indies. In answer Columbus took an 
t<gg from a dish on the table and handing it to the questioner 
asked him to make it stand on end. 



28 COLUMBUS, THE GREAT SAlLOR 

After trying several times the man gave it up. Columbus, 
taking the ^'g^g in his hand, tapping it gently on one end 
against the top of the table so as to break the shell slightly, 
made it balance. 

"Any one could do that," said the man. '*So any one 
can discover the Indies after I have shown him the way," said 
Columbus. 

It was his day of pride and triumph. Poor Columbus 

was soon to find out how Spain treated its benefactors. 

Three times again he sailed to the New World, 

How Columbus ^^^ once a base Spanish governor sent him 

was Treated , , r- • • i i • i • i • i 

at Home back to Spam with chams upon his limbs. 

Those chains he kept hanging in his room till 

he died, and asked that they should be buried with him. 

They who had once given him every honor, now treated 
him with shameful neglect. He who had ridden beside the 
king and dined with the highest nobles of Spain, became 
poor, sad and lonely. 

He died in 1506, fourteen years after his great discovery. 

Then Spain, which had treated him so badly, began to 

honor his memory. But it came too late for poor Columbus, 

who had been allowed to die almost like a pauper, after he 

had made Spain the richest country in Europe. 



CHAPTER II 




Three Great Discoverers 

ERY likely some of the readers of this book have 
asked their fathers or mothers how Spain came 
to own the islands of Cuba and Porto Rico, 
whose people they treated so badly that the 
United States had to go to war a few years ago 
and take these islands from Spain. Of course, you all know 
how the battleship Maine was blown up in the harbor of the 
city of Havana, and nearly all its brave sailors went to the 
bottom and were drowned. That was one reason why we 
went to war. If you should ask me that 
question, I would say that these were some 
of the islands which Columbus found, when 
he sailed into those sunny seas four cen- 
turies ago. They were settled by Spaniards, 
who killed off all their people and have 
lived on them ever since. There they have 
raised sugar-cane, and tobacco, and coffee, 
and also ora-^ges and bananas and all kinds of fine fruits. 
They might have kept on owning these islands and 
raising these fruits for many years to come, if they had not 
been so cruel to the people that they revolted, and with the 
assistance of the United States Government the islands were 
taken from Spain. 

When Columbus told the nobles and people of Spain 
of his wonderful discovery, and showed them the plants and 
animals, the gold and other things, he had found on these 
far-off islands, it made a great excitement in that country. 

29 




SEBASTIAN CABOT 



30 THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 

You know how the finding of gold in Alaska has sent 
thousands of our own people to that cold country after the 
shining yellow metal. In the same way the gold which 
Columbus brought back sent thousands of Spaniards across 
the wide seas to the warm and beautiful islands of which the 
great sailor told them, where they hoped to find gold like 
stones in our streets. 

Dozens of ships soon set sail from Spain, carrying 
thousands of people to the fair lands of the west, from which 
they hoped to come back laden with riches. 
The Cabots At the Same time two daring sailors from Eng- 

land, John Cabot and his son Sebastian, crossed 
the ocean farther north, and found land where the Northmen 
had found it five hundred years before. In the seas into 
which the Cabots sailed, great fish were so plentiful that the 
ships could hardly sail through them, and bears swam out 
in the water and caught the fish in their mouths. That was 
certainly a queer way of fishing. 

When the Cabots came back and told what they had 
seen, you may be sure the daring fishermen of Europe did not 
stay long at home. Soon numbers of their stout little ves- 
sels were crossing the ocean, and most of them came back so 
full of great codfish that the water almost ran over their 
decks. 

Do you not think these fishermen were wiser than the 
Spaniards, who went everywhere seeking for gold, and find- 
ing very little of it ? Gold is only good to buy food and 
other things ; but if these can be had without buying they 
are better still. At any rate, the hardy fishermen thought so, 
and they were more lucky in finding fish than the Spaniards 
were in finding gold. 

Thus the years passed on, and more and more Spaniards 
came to the islands of Cuba and Hispaniola (which is now 



THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 



31 



known as Hayti or San Domingo). And some of them soon 
began to sail farther west in search of new lands. Columbus, 
in his last voyage reached the coasts of South America and 
Central America and other Spanish ships followed to those 
new shores. 

I might tell 
you many won- 
derful things about 
these daring men. 
There was one of 
them named Bal- 
boa whose story 
you will be glad 
to hear, for it is 
full of strange 
events. This man 
had gone to the 
island of Hispani- 
ola to make his 
fortune, but he 
found there only 
bad fortune. He 
had to work on a 
farm, and in time 
he got to be so 
poor and owed so 
much money that 
it seemed as if he 
could never get out of debt. In fact he was in sad straits. 

No doubt the people who had lent him money often 
asked him to pay it back again, and Balboa, who got into a 
worse state every day, at length took an odd way to rid him- 
self of his troubles. A ship was about to set sail for the 




CABOT ON THE SHORES OF LABRADOR 



32 THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 

west, and the poor debtor managed to get carried aboard it 
in a barrel. This barrel came from his farm and was sup- 
posed to contain provisions, and it was not till they were far 
away from land that it was opened and a living man was 

found in it instead of salt beef or pork. 
How Balboa When the captain saw him he was much 

Passage astonished. He had paid for a barrel of pro- 

visions, and he found something which he 
could not well eat. He grew so angry at being cheated that 
he threatened to leave Balboa on a desert island, but the poor 
fellow got on his knees and begged so hard for his life that 
the captain at length forgave him. But he made him work to 
pay his way, and very likely used the rope's end to stir him up. 

Of course you have learned from your geographies where 
the Isthmus of Darien (now called Panama) is, that narrow 
strip of land that is like a string tying together the great con- 
tinents of North and South America. It was to the town of 
Darien, on this isthmus, that the ship made its way, and here 
Balboa made a surprising discovery. Some of the Indian 
chiefs told him of a mighty ocean which lay on the other side 
of the isthmus, and that beyond that ocean was the wonderful 
land of gold which the Spaniards wished to find. 

What would you have done if you had been in Balboa's 
place, and wanted gold to pay your debts ? Some of you, I 
think, would have done what he did. You would have made 
your way into the thick forest and climbed the rugged moun- 
tains of the isthmus, until, like Balboa, you got to the top of 
the highest peak. And, like him, you would have been filled 
with joy when you saw in the far distance the vast Pacific 
ocean, its waves glittering in the summer sun. 

Here was glory; here was fortune. The poor debtor had 
become a great discoverer. Before his eyes spread a mighty 
ocean, its waves beating on the shore. He hurried with his 



THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 



33 



men down the mountain sides 
on its shores the great banner 
set sail on its waters for Peru, 
not get very far, for the stormy 
Poor Balboa ! he was to 
fortune, and his debts were 
A jealous Spanish governor 
damned him as a, traitor, and 
off in the market place. And 



to this shining sea, and raised 
of Spain. And soon after he 
the land of gold. But he did 
weather drove him back. 

win fame, but not 
never to be paid, 
siezed him, con- 
had his head cut 
so ended Bal- 




BALBOA DISCOVERS 
THE PACIFIC 



boa's dream of gold and glory. I could tell you of other 
wonderful adventures in these new lands. There is the story 
of Cortez, who found the great kingdom of Mexico, and con- 
quered it with a few hundred Spaniards in armor of steel 
And there is the story of Pizarro, who sailed to Peru, Balboa's 
land of gold, and won it for Spain, and sent home tons of 



34 THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 

silver and gold. But these stories have nothing to do with 
the history of the United States, so we must pass them by and 
go back to the early days of the country in which we dwell. 

The first Spaniard to set foot on the shores of the 
United States was an old man named Ponce de Leon, who 
was governor of Porto Rico. If he had lived 
Ponce de Leon until now he would have been on our soil 
Adventures while there, for that island now belongs to the 

United States. But no one had dreamed of 
our great republic four hundred years ago. 

At that time there was a fable which many believed, 
which said that somewhere in Asia was a wonderful Foun- 
tain of Youth. Everybody who drank of or bathed in its 
waters would grow young again. An old man in a moment 
would become as fresh and. strong as a boy. De Leon wanted 
youth more than he did gold, and like all men at that time 
he thought the land he was in was part of Asia, and might 
contain the Fountain of Youth. He asked the Indians if 
they knew of such a magic spring. The red men, who 
wanted to get rid of the Spaniards, by whom they had been 
cruelly treated, pointed to the northwest. 

So, in the year 15 13, old Ponce de Leon took ship and 
sailed away in search of the magic spring. And not many 
days passed before, on Easter Sunday, he saw before him a 
land so bright with flowers that he named it "Flowery 
Easter." It is still called Florida, the Spanish word for 
"flowery." 

I am sure none of my young readers believe in such a 
Fountain of Youth, and that none of you would have hunted 
for it as old De Leon did. Up and down that flowery land 
he wandered, seeking its wonderful waters. He found many 
sparkling springs, and eagerly drank of and bathed in their 
cool, liquid waves, but out of them all he came with white 



THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 



35 



hair and wrinkled face. In the end he gave up the search, 
and sailed away, a sad old man. Some years afterwards he 
came back again. But this time the Indians fought with the 
white men, and De Leon was struck with an arrow, and hurt 
so badly that he soon died. So he found death instead of 
youth. Many people go to Florida in our own days in search 
of health, but Ponce 
de Leon is the only 
man who ever went 
there to find the mag- 
ical Fountain of Youth. 

About twenty-five 
years afterwards 
another Spaniard came 
to Florida. It was 
gold and glory he was 
after, not youth. This 
man, Fernando de 
Soto, had been in Peru 
with Pizarro, and 
helped him to conquer 
that land of gold. He 
now hoped to find a 
rich empire for himself 
in the north. 

So with nine ships 
and six hundred brave 
young men he sailed away from his native land. They were 
a gay and hopeful band, while their bright banners floated 
proudly from the mastheads, and waved in the western winds. 
Little did they dream of what a terrible fate lay before them. 

I think you will say that De Soto deserved a bad fate^ 
when I tell you that he brought bloodhounds to hunt the 




PONCE DE LEON AND THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH 



36 THREE GREAT DISCOVERERS 

poor Indians, and chains to fasten on their hands and feet. 
That was the way the Spaniards often treated the poor red 
men. He brought also two hundred horses for his armed 
men to ride, and a drove of hogs to serve them for fresh 
meat. And in the ships were great iron chests, which he 
hoped to take back full of gold and other precious things. 

For two long years De Soto and his band traveled 
through the country, fighting the Indians, burning their 
houses and robbing them of their food. But the Indians were 
brave warriors, and in one terrible battle the Spaniards lost 
eighty of their horses and many of their men. 

In vain De Soto sought for gold and glory. Not an 
ounce of the yellow metal was found ; no mighty empire was 
reached. He did make one great discovery, 
that of the vast Mississippi River. But he 
never got home to tell of it, for he died 
on its banks, worn out with his battles and 
marches, and was buried under its waters. 
His men built boats and floated down the 
great river to the Gulf of Mexico. Here, 
AMERIGO VESPUCCI ^^ length, thcy found Spanish settlements. 
But of that brave and gallant band half were dead, and the 
rest were so nearly starved that they were like living skeletons. 
We must not forget that humble Italian traveler and 
explorer, Amerigo Vespucci, who in 1499, saw the part of 
South America where lies the island of Trinidad. Many 
years after, when maps were made of the part he visited, some 
one called it America and others seemed to be pleased and 
used the name too. So what should have been called 
Columbia has been called America. 





CHAPTER III 

Three Heroes of Enterprise 

WHAT do you think of Captain John Smith, 
the hero of Virginia? Was he not a man 
to dream of, a true hero of romance ? Why, 
I feel half ashamed to say anything about 
him, for every one of you must know his 
story. I am sure all those who love 
romance have read about him. 

John Smith was not the kind of man 
8IR WALTER RALEIGH to work at 3. tradc. He ran away from 
home when a boy, and became a wanderer over the earth. 
And a hard life he had of it. At one place he Avas robbed, 
and at another place was shipwrecked. Once he leaped 
overboard from a ship and swam ashore. Once again he 
fought with three Turks and killed all of them without help. 
Then he was taken prisoner, and sold as a slave to a cruel 
Turk, who put a ring round his neck and made him work 
very hard. 

One day his master came out where he was at work and 
struck him with his whip. He soon found that John Smith 
was a bad man to whip. He hit the Turk a hard blow with 
the flail he was using, and killed him on the spot. Then he 
ran away, got to Russia, and in time made his way back to 
England. But England was too quiet a place for him. A 
ship was about to cross the sea to America and he volun- 
teered to go in it. He had not half enough of adventure yet. 
Some people think that Captain Smith bragged a little, and 



38 THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 

did not do all he said. Well, that may be so. But it is certain 
that he was a brave and bold man, and just the man to help 
settle a new country where there were savage red men to 
deal with. 

The English were in no hurry in sending out settlers to 
the New World which Columbus had discovered. While the 
Spaniards were seeking gold and empires in the south, and 
the French were catching fish and exploring the rivers and 
lakes in the north, all the English did was to rob the Spanish 
ships and settlements, and to bring them negroes from 
Africa for slaves 

But the time came, a hundred years after America was 
discovered, when some of the English tried to form a settle- 
ment on the coast of North Carolina. Poor settlers ! When 
the next ship came out they were all gone. Not 
The First ^ g^^j ^^ them could be found. Nothing was 

Settlement ^^^^ t)ut some letters they had cut into the bark 
of a tree. What became of them nobody ever 
knew. Likely enough they wandered away and were killed 
by the Indians. 

Nothing more was done until the year 1607, when the 
ship in which Captain John Smith had taken passage sailed 
up a bright and beautiful river in Virginia. It was the month 
of May, and the banks were covered with flowers. 

The colonists thought this a very good place to live in, so 
they landed and began to look around them. The river they 
called the James, and the place they named Jamestown. But 
instead of building a town and preparing for the future, as 
sensible men would have done, they began to seek for gold, 
and soon they were in no end of trouble. In a short time 
their food was all eaten. Then some of them took sick and 
died. Others were killed by the Indians. It looked as if this 
colony would come to grief as did the former one. 



THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 



39 



So it would if it had not been for Captain Smith. He 
was only one man among a hundred, but he was worth more 
than all the rest of the hundred. He could not keep still, but 
hustled about, here, there and everywhere. Now he was 
exploring the country, sailing up the rivers or up the broad 
Chesapeake Bay. Now he was talking with the Indians, get- 
ting food from them for the starving colonists. Now he was 
doing his best to make the men build houses and dig and 



^^^•f^^^-^^ ".'?^^^ J - 




POCHAHONTAS SAVING THE LIFE OF JOHN SMITH 

plant the ground. You can see that John Smith had enough 
to keep him busy. He had many adventures with the Indians. 
At one time he was taken prisoner by them and was in terrible 
danger of being killed. But he showed them his pocket com- 
pass, and when they saw the needle always pointing north, 
they thought there must be magic in it. They were still more 
surprised when he sent one of them with a letter to his friends. 
They did not understand how a piece of paper could talk, as 
his paper seemed to do. 



40 THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 

But all this was not enough to save his life. The great 
chief Powhatan looked on him as the leader of these white 
strangers who had settled in his land. He wanted to get rid 
of them, and thought that if he killed the man of the magic 
needle and the talking paper they would certainly be scared 
and go away. 

So Captain Smith was tied hand and foot, and laid on 

the ground with his head on a log. And a powerful Indian 

stood near by with a great war club in his hand. 

n mg Only a sig^n from Powhatan was needed, and 

Adventure y & 

down would come that club on the white man's 
head, and it would be all over with the brave and bold John 
Smith. 

Alas ! poor Captain Smith ! There was no pity in Pow- 
hatan's eyes. The burly Indian twisted his fingers about the 
club and lifted it in the air. One minute more and it might 
be all over with the man who had killed three Turks in one 
fight. But before that minute was over a strange thing took 
place. A young Indian girl came running wildly into the hut, 
with her hair flying and her eyes wet with tears. And she 
flung herself on the ground and laid her head on that of the 
bound prisoner, and begged the chief to give him his life. 

It was Pocahontas, the pretty young daughter of Pow- 
hatan. She pleaded so pitifully that the chief's heart was 
touched, and he consented that the captive should live, and 
bade them take the bonds from his limbs. 

Do you not think this a very pretty story ? Some say 
that it is not true, but I think very likely it is. At any rate, 
it is so pretty that it ought to be true. Afterwards this inter- 
esting Indian Princess married one of the Virginians named 
John Rolfe and was taken to London and presented to the 
Queen. I am sorry to have to say that the poor woman died 
there and never saw^ her native land again. 



THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 41 

Captain Smith got safe back to Jamestown. But his 
troubles were not at an end, for the colonists were as hard 
to deal with as the Indians. Some of them had found a kind 
of yellow stuff which they were sure was gold. They loaded 
a ship with this and sent it to England, thinking that they 
would all be rich. But the yellow stuff proved to be what is 
known as a fools' gold," and worth no more than so much 




LANDING OF MILES STANDISH 



sand. Instead of becoming rich, they were laughed at as 
great fools. 

After a while Smith was made governor, and he now 
tried a new plan to make the men work. He told them that if 
they did not work they should not eat. None of them wanted 
to starve, and they knew that John Smith meant just what he 
said, so they began to build houses and to dig the ground and 
plant crops. But some of them grumbled and some of them 
swore, and it was anything but a happy family. 



42 THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 

Captain Smith did not like this swearing, and he took a 
funny way to stop it. When the men came home at night each 
one who had sworn had a can of cold water 
How Smith poured down his sleeve for every time he had 

stop Swearing done SO. Did any of my readers ever try that? 
If they did they would know why the men soon 
quit grumbling and swearing. All was beginning to go well 
in the colony when Captain Smith was hurt by some gun- 
powder that took fire and went off He was hurt so badly 
that he had to go back to England. After that all went ill. 

As soon as their governor was gone the lazy men quit 
working. The profane men swore worse than before. They 
ate up all their food in a hurry, and the Indians would bring 
them no more. Sickness and hunger came and carried many 
of them to the grave. Some of them meddled with the 
Indians and were killed. There were five hundred of them 
when winter set in; but when spring came only sixty of them 
were alive. And all this took place because one wise man. 
Captain John Smith, was hurt and had to go home. 

The whole colony would haVe broken up if ships had not 

come out with more men and plenty of food. Soon after that^ 

the people began to plant the ground and raise 

Prosperity tobacco, which sold well in England. Many of 

them became rich, and the little settlement at 

Jamestown in time grew into the great colony of Virginia. 

This ends the story of the hero of Jamestown. Now 
let us say something about the hero of Plymouth. In the 
year 1620, thirteen years after Smith and his fellows 
sailed up the James River, a shipload of men and women 
came to a place called Plymouth, on the rocky coast of New 
England. It was named Plymouth by Captain Smith, who 
had been there before. A portion of the rock on which they 
first stepped, is still preserved and surrounded by a fence. 



THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 



43 



These people are known as Pilgrims. They had been 
badly treated at home because they did not believe in the doc- 
trines of the Church of England, and they had come across 
the stormy sea to find a place where they could worship God 
in their own way, without fear of being put in prison. 

With them came a soldier. He was named Captain Miles 
Standish. He was a little 
man, but he carried a big 
sword, and had a stout 
heart and a hot temper. 
While the Pilgrims came 
to work and to '^^^,._ 
pray. Captain 
Standish came 
to fight. He was 
a different man 
from Captain 
Smith, and 
would not have 
been able to deal 
with the lazy 
folks at James- 
town. But the 
Pilgrims were 
different also. They 
expected to work and 
live by their labor, and they had no sooner landed on Ply- 
mouth Rock than they began to dig and plant, while the sound 
of the hammer rang merrily all day long, as they built houses 
and got ready for the cold winter. But for all their labor 
and carefulness, sickness and hunger came, as they had done 
at Jamestown, and by the time spring came, half the poor 
Pilgrims were dead. 




INDIANS IN WAR PAINT 



44 THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 

The Indians soon got to be afraid of Captain Standish, 
They were afraid of the Pilgrims, too, for they found that these 
rehgious men could fight as well as pray. One Indian chief, 
named Canonicus, sent them a bundle of arrows with a snake's 
skin tied round it. This was their way of saying 
t" ^^'f w ^^' ^^^^ ^^y were going to fight the Pilgrims and 
drive them from the country. But Governor 
Bradford filled the snake skin with powder and bullets and 
sent it back. When Canonicus saw this he was badly scared, 
for he knew well what it meant. He had heard the white 
men's guns, and thought they had the power of using thunder 
and lightning. So he made up his mind to let the white 
strangers alone. 

But the Pilgrims did not trust the red men. They put 
cannon on the roof of their log church, and they walked to church 
on Sunday like so many soldiers on the march, with guns in 
their hands and Captain Standish at their head. And while 
they were listening to the sermon one man stood outside on 
the lookout for danger. 

At one time some of the Indians made a plot to kill all 

the English. A friendly Indian told Captain Standish about 

it, and he made up his mind to teach them a lesson they 

would remember. He went to the Indian camp 

rou es wi ^^.^j^ ^ ^^^ men, and walked boldly into the hut 

the Indians ' •; 

where the plotting chiefs were talking over their 
plans. When they saw him and the men with him, they tried 
to frighten them. One of them showed the Captain his knife 
and talked very boldly about it. 

A big Indian looked with scorn on the little Captain. 
" Poh, you are only a little fellow, if you are a captain," he 
said. " I am not a chief, but I am strong and brave." 

Captain Standish was very angry, but he said nothing 
then. He waited until the next day, when he met the chiefs 



THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 



45 



again. Then there was a quarrel and a fight, and the 
Httle captain killed the big Indian with his own kniic. More 
of the Indians were slain, and the others ran for the woods. 
That put an end to the plot. 

There is one funny story told about Captain Standish. 
His wife had died, and he felt so lonely that he wanted an- 
other ; so he picked out a pretty young woman named Pris- 



the rough 

more about 

- making love, 



cilia Mullins. But 
old soldier knew 
fighting than about 
and he sent his 
young friend, John 
Alden, to make love 
for him. 

John told Pris- ^-^ 
cilia's father what 
he had come for, 
and the father told 
Priscilla what John 
had told him. The 
pretty Priscilla had 
no fancy for the 
wrinkled old sol- 
dier. She looked 
at her father. Then 
she looked at John. 
Then she said : " Why don't you speak for yourself, John ? " 

John did speak for himself and Priscilla became his wife. 
As for the captain, he married another woman, and this time 
I fancy he " spoke for himself" 

Miles Standish lived to be 70 years old, and to have a 
farm of his own and a house on a high hill near Plymouth. 
This is called Captain's Hill, and on it there is now a stone 




ROGER WILLIAMS 
IN FLIGHT 



46 THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 

shaft a hundred feet high, with a statue of bold Captain Stan- 
dish on its top. 

We have now our third hero to speak of, Roger Wil- 
liams. He was not a captain like the others, but a preacher; 
but he was a brave man, and showed in his way as much 
courage as either of the captains. 

The Pilgrims were quickly followed by other people, who 

settled at Boston and other places around Massachusetts Bay 

until there were a great many of them. These 

Preacher were called Puritans. They came across the 

seas for the same reason as the Pilgrims, to 

worship God in their own way. 

But they were as hard to live with as the people at home, 
for they wanted to force everybody else into their way. Some 
Quakers who came to Boston were treated very badly because 
they had different beliefs from the Puritans. And one young 
minister named Roger Williams, who thought every man 
should have the right to worship as he pleased, and said that 
the Indians had not been treated justly, had to flee into the 
woods for safety. 

It was winter time. Th€ trees were bare of leaves and 
the ground was white with snow. Poor Roger had to wander 
through the cold woods, making a fire at night with his flint 
and steel, or sometimes creeping into a hollow tree to sleep. 

Thus he went on, half frozen and half starved, for eighty 
long miles, to the house of Massasoit, an Indian chief who 
was his friend. The good chief treated him well, for he knew, 
like all the Indians, what Roger Williams had 
Colony tried to do for them. When spring time came, 

Massasoit gave his guest a canoe and told him 
where to go. So Roger paddled away till he found a good 
place to stop. This place he called Providence. A large city 
now stands there, and is still called Providence. 



THREE HEROES OF ENTERPRISE 47 

Roger Williams had some friends with him, and others 
soon came, and after a few years he had quite a colony of his 
own. It was called Rhode Island. 

He took care that the Indians should be treated well, and 
that no one should do them any harm, so they grew to love 
the good white man. And he said that every man in his 
colony should have what religion he liked best, and no one 
should suffer on account of his mode of worship. 

It was a wonderful thing in those days, when there were 
wars going on in Europe about religion, and everybody was 
punished who did not believe in the religion of the state. 

Do you not think that Roger Williams was as brave a 
man as John Smith or Miles Standish, and as much of a hero? 
He did not kill any one. He was not that kind of a hero. 
But he did much to make men happy and good and to do 
justice to all men, and I think that is the best kind of a hero. 




CHAPTER IV 



How the Dutch and the Quakers Came 

to America 




WONDER how many of my readers have ever 
seen the great city of New York. I wonder 
still more how many of them know that it is the 
largest cit\^ in the world except London. But 
we must remember that London is ten times as 
old, so it can well afford to be larger. 

Why, if you should go back no farther than the time of 
your great-grandfather you would find no city of New York. 
All you would sec would be a sort of large village on Man- 
hattan Island, at the mouth of the Hudson River. And if 
you went back to the time of your grandfather's great grand- 
father, I fancy you would see nothing on that island but trees, 
with Indian wigwams beneath them. Not a single white man 
or a single house would you see. 

In the year 1609, just two years after Captain Smith 
sailed into the James River, a queer-looking Dutch vessel 
came across the ocean and began to prowl up 
and down the coast. It was named the " Half 
Moon." It came from Holland, the land of the 
Dutch, but its captain was an Englishman named Henry 
Hudson, who had done so many daring things that men 
called him "the bold Englishman. ' 

What Captain Hudson would have liked to do was to sail 
across the United States and come out into the Pacific Ocean, 
and so make his way to the rich countries of Asia. Was not 



Captain Hudson 
Arrives 



48 



THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 



49 



that a funny notion ? To think that he could sail across three 
thousand miles of land and across great ranges of mountains ! 
But you must not think that Captain Hudson was crazy. 
Nobody then knew how wide America was. For all they 
knew it might not be fifty miles wide. Captain John Smith 
tried to get across it by sailing up James River. And Cap- 
tain Hudson fancied he might find some stream that led from 
one ocean to the other. 



So on he went up and 
down the coast looking for 
an opening. And after a' 
while the "Half Moon" 
sailed into a broad and 
beautiful bay, where great 
trees came down to the 
edge of the water and red 
men paddled about in their 
canoes. Captain Hudson 
was delighted to see it. 
"It was," he said, "as 
pleasant with grass and 
flowers as he had ever seen, 
and very sweet smells." 

This body of water 
was what we now call New 
York Bay. A broad and 
swift river runs into it, which is now called Hudson River, 
after Henry Hudson. The bold captain thought that this 
was the stream to go up if he wished to reach the Pacific 
Ocean. So, after talking as well as he could with the 
Indians in their canoes, and trading beads for corn, he set his 
sails again and started up the splendid river. Some of the 
Indians came on board the "Half Moon," and the Dutch 




PETER STUYVESANT 
ASKS THE DUTCH 
NOT TO SURRENDER 



50 THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 

gave them brandy, which they had never seen or tasted before. 
Soon they were dancing and capering about the deck, and 
one of them fell down so stupid with drink that his friends 
thought he was dead. That was their first taste of the deadly 
•'fire water" of the whites, which has killed thousands of the 
red men since then. 

Captain Hudson and the Dutch no doubt thought that 
this was great fun. People often do much harm without stop- 
ping to think. But on up the river went the " Half Moon." 

At some places they saw fields of green corn on the 
water's edge. Farther on were groves of lofty trees, and for 
miles great cliffs of rock rose like towers. It was all very 
grand and beautiful. 

" It was a very good land to fall in with," said Captain 
Hudson, " and a pleasant land to see." 

They sailed on and on till they came to mountains, which 
rose on both sides the river. After passing the mountains, the 
captain went ashore to visit an old chief, who lived in a round 
house built of bark. The Indians here had 
the Indians* great heaps of corn and beans. But what they 
liked best was roast dog. They roasted a dog 
for Captain Hudson and asked him to eat it, but I do not 
know whether he did so or not. And they broke their arrows 
and threw them into the fire, to show that they did not mean 
to do harm to the white men. 

After leaving the good old chief the Dutch explorers 
went on up the river till they reached a place about 1 50 miles 
above the sea, where the city of Albany now stands. Here 
the river became so narrow and shallow that Captain Hudson 
saw he could not reach the Pacific by that route, so he turned 
and sailed back to the sea again. 

A sad fate was that of Captain Hudson, " the bold Eng- 
lishman." The next year he came back to America. But this 



THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 51 

time he went far to the north and entered the great body of 
water which we call Hudson Bay. He thought this would 
lead to the Pacific, and he would not turn back, though the food 
was nearly all gone. At last the crew got desperate, and they 
put the captain and some others into an open boat on the 
wide waters, and turned back again. Nothing more was ever 
heard of Captain Hudson, and he must have died miserably 
on that cold and lonely bay. 

But he had told the Dutch people all about Hudson 
River, and that the Indians had many fine furs, which they 
would be glad to trade for beads, and knives, and other cheap 
things. The Dutch were fond of trading, and liked to make 
a good bargain, so they soon began to send ships to America; 
They built a fort and some log huts on Manhattan Island, 
and a number of them stayed there to trade 
with the red men. They paid the Indians for ^^^^^ (^st 
the island with some cheap goods worth about 
twenty-four dollars. I do not think any of you could guess 
how many millions of dollars that island is worth now. For 
the great city of New York stands where the log huts of the 
Dutch traders once stood, and twenty-four dollars would 
hardly buy as much land as you could cover with your hand. 

The country around is now all farming land, where 

grain and fruit are grown, and cattle are raised. But then it 

was all woodland for hundreds of miles away, and in these 

woods lived many foxes and beavers and other fur-bearing 

animals. These the Indians hunted and killed and sold their 

furs to the Dutch, so that there was soon a good trade for 

both the red and the white men. The Dutch were glad to get 

the furs, and the Indians were as glad to get the knives and 

beads. More and more people came from Holland, and the 

town grew larger and larger, and strong brick houses took the 

place of the log huts, and in time there was quite a town. 
4 



52 THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 

Men were sent from Holland to govern the people. 
Some of these men were not fit to govern themselves, 
and the settlers did not like to have such men over them. 
One of them was a stubborn old fellow named Peter Stuyves- 
ant. He had lost one of his legs, and wore a wooden leg 
with bands of silver round it, so that he was called " Old 
Silver Leg." 

While he was governor an important event took place. 

The English had a settlement in Virginia and another in New 

England, and they said that all the coast lands 

^1 *• ^f ^x/ . belong^ed to them, because the Cabots had been 

Claim New York o ' 

the first to see them. The Cabots came from 
Italy, but they had settled in England, and sailed in an 
English ship. 

So one day a small fleet of English vessels came into 
the bay, and a letter was sent on shore which said that all this 
land belonged to England and must be given up to them. 
The Dutch might stay there, but they would be under an 
English governor. Old Peter tore up the letter and stamped 
about in a great rage on his silver leg. But he had treated 
the people so badly that they would not fight for him, so he 
had to give up the town. 

The English called it New York, after the Duke of York, 
the king's brother. It grew and grew till it got to be a great 

and rich city, and sent ships to all parts of the 
E^^r h*^R i" ^^ world. Most of the Dutch stayed there, and 

their descendants are among the best people of 
New York to-day. Not long after these English ships came 
to New York Bay, other English ships came to a fine body 
of water, about loo miles farther South, now called Delaware 
Bay. Into this also runs a great stream of fresh water, called 
Delaware River, as wide as the Hudson. I think you will 
like to learn what brought them here. 



THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 



53 



No doubt you remember what I said about some people 
called Quakers, who came to Boston and were treated very 
badly by the Puritans. Did any of my young readers ever see 
a Quaker ? In old times you would have known them, for 
they dressed in a different way from other people. They 
wore very plain clothes 



and broad brimmed 
hats, which they would 
not take off to do honor 
to king or noble. To- 
day they generally 
dress more like the 
people around them. 

If they were treated 
badly in Boston, they 
were treated worse in 
England. Thieves and 
highwaymen had as 
good a time as the poor 
Quakers. Some of them 
were put in jail and kept there 
for years. Some were whipped 
or put in the stocks, where low 
people called them vile names 
and threw mud at them. In- 
deed, these quiet people, who 
did no harm to any one, but ^'^- penn, the good and wise ruler 
vvere kind to others, had a very hard time, and were treated 
more cruelly than the Pilgrims and the Puritans. 

Among them was the son of a brave English admiral, who 
was a friend of the king and his brother, the Duke of York. 
But this did not save him from being put in prison for preach- 
ing the Quaker doctrines and wearing his hat in court. 




54 THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 

This was William Penn from whom Pennsylvania w^as 
named. You may well fancy that the son of a rich admiral 
and the friend of a king did not like being treated as though 
he were a thief because he chose to wear a hat with a broad 
brim and to say "thee" and "thou," and because he would 
not go to the king's church. 

What is more, the king owed him money, which he coula 
not or would not pay. He had owed this money to Admiral 
Penn, and after the admiral died he owed it to his son. 

William Penn thought it would be wise to do as the 

Pilgrims and Puritans had done. There was plenty of land 

in America, and it would be easy there to make 

e Qua ers in ^ home for the poor Quakers where they could 

Pennsylvania . 

live in peace and worship God in the way they 
thought right. This they could not do in England. 

Penn went to the king and told him how he could pay 
his debt. If the king would give him a tract of land on the 
west side of the Delaware River, he would give him a receipt 
in full for the money owing to his father. 

King Charles, who never had money enough for his own 
use, was very glad to pay his debts in this easy way. He 
told Penn that he could have all the land he wanted, and 
offered him a tract that was nearly as large as the whole of 
England. This land belonged to the red men, but that did 
not trouble King Charles. It is easy to pay debts in other 
people's property. All Penn was asked to pay the king was 
two beaver skins every year and one-fifth of all the gold and 
silver that should be mined. As no gold or silver was ever 
mined the king got nothing but his beaver skins, which were 
a kind of rent. 

What do any of my young readers know about the 
Delaware River? Have any of you seen the wide, swift 
stream which flows between the states of Pennsylvania and 



THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 55 

New Jersey, and runs into the broad body of water known as 
Delaware Bay? On its banks stands the great city of Phila- 
delphia, in which live more than a million people, and where 
there are thousands of busy workshops and well-filled stores. 
This large and fine city came from the way the king paid his 
debt. King Charles was not a good man, but he did one 
good thing. 

There were white men there before the Quakers came. 
Many years earlier a number of people from Sweden had 
come and settled along the river. Then the Dutch from New 
York said the land was theirs, and took possession of the 
forts of the Swedes. Then the English of New 
York claimed the land as theirs. Then Quakers ^ ^^ aiman s 

'^ to Pennsylvania 

came and settled in New Jersey. Finally came 
William Penn, in a ship called by the pretty name of the 
"Welcome," and after that the land belonged to the Quakers 
or Friends, though the Swedes stayed there still. 

We have something very pleasant to say about good 
William Penn. He knew very well that King Charles did 
not own the land, and had no right to sell it or give it away. 
So he called the Indians together under a great elm tree on 
the river bank, and had a long talk with them, and told them 
he would pay them for all the land he wanted. This pleased 
the red men very much, and ever afterwards they loved Wil- 
liam Penn. 

Do you not think it must have been a pretty scene when 
Penn and the Quakers met the Indian chiefs under the great 
tree — the Indians in their colored blankets and the Quakers 
in their great hats ? That tree stood for more than a hundred 
years afterwards, and when the British army was in Philadel- 
phia during the war of the Revolution their general put a 
guard around Penn's treaty tree, so that the soldiers should 
not cut it down for firewood. The tree is gone now, but a 



56 THE DUTCH AND THE QUAKERS 

stone monument marks where it stood. A city was laid out 
on the river, which Penn named Philadelphia, or Brotherly 
Love. I suppose there is some brotherly love there still, but 
not nearly so much as there should be. 

Streets were made through the woods, and the names of 

the trees were given to these streets, which are still known as 

Chestnut, Walnut, Pine, Cherry, and the like. 

Philadelphia x^ i u j \l • 

Founded People soon came m numbers, and it is won- 

derful how fast the city grew. Soon there were 
hundreds of comfortable houses, and in time it got to be the 
largest city in the country. 

The Indians looked on in wonder to see large houses 
springing up where they had hunted deer, and to see great 
ships where they had paddled their canoes. But the white 
men spread more and more into the land, and the red men 
were pushed back, and in time none of them were left in 
Penn's woodland colony. This was long after William Penn 
was dead. 

But while Penn's city was growing large and rich, he 
was becoming poor. He spent much money on his province 
and got very little back. At last he became so poor that he 
was put in prison for debt, as was the custom in those days. 
In the end he died and left the province to his sons. The 
Indians sent some beautiful furs to his widow in memory of 
their great and good brother. They said these were to make 
her a cloak " to protect her while she was passing without 
her guide through the stormy wilderness of life." 





CHAPTER V 

The Cavalier Colonies of the South 

IRGINIA has often been called the Cavalier col- 
ony. Do any of you know why, or who the 
Cavaliers were ? Perhaps I had better tell you. 
They were the lords and the proud people of 
England. Many of them had no money, but 
they would do no work, and cared for nothing but pleasure 
and fighting. There were plenty of working people in that 
country, but there were many who were too proud to work, and 
expected others to work for them, while they hoped to live by 
gambling and cheating. 

These were the kind of men who came out with John 
Smith, and that is why he had so much trouble with them. 
The Puritans and the Quakers came from the working people 
of England, and nobody had to starve them to make them 
work, or to pour cold water down their sleeves to stop them 
from swearing. 

While religious people settled in the North, many of the 
proud Cavalier class, who cared very little about religion, came 
to the South. So we may call the southern settlements the 
Cavalier colonies, though many of the common people came 
there too, and it was not long before there was plenty of work. 

57 



58 THE CAVALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 

The first to come after John Smith and the Jamestown 
people were some shiploads of Catholics. You should know 
that the Catholics were treated in England even worse than 
the Puritans and the Quakers. The law said they must go to 
the English Church instead of to their own. If they did not 
they would have to pay a large sum of money or go to prison. 
Was not this very harsh and unjust? 

The Catholics were not all poor people. There were rich 
men and nobles among them. One of these nobles, named 
Lord Baltimore, asked the King for some land in America 
where he and his friends might dwell in peace and have 
churches of their own. This was many years before William 
Penn asked for the same thing. The King was 
^ J. !-^^ n a friend of Lord Baltimore and told him he 

Catholics Came 

might have as much land as he could make use 
of So he picked out a large tract just north of Virginia, 
which the King named Maryland, after his wife, Queen Mary, 
who was a Catholic. All Lord Baltimore had to pay for this 
was two Indian arrows every year, and a part of the gold and 
silver, if any were found. This was done to show that the 
King still kept some claim to Maryland, and did not give 
away all his rights. 

And now comes a story much the same as I have told 
you several times already. A shipload of Catholics and other 
people came across the ocean to the new continent which 
Columbus had discovered many years before. These sailed 
up the broad Chesapeake Bay. You may easily find this bay 
on your maps. They landed at a place they called St. 
Mary's, where there was a small Indian town. As it hap- 
pened, the Indians at this town had been so much troubled 
by fighting tribes farther north that they were just going to 
move somewhere else. So they were very glad to sell their 
town to the white strangers. •: 



THE CA VALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 59 

All they wanted for their houses and their corn fields 
were some hatchets, knives and beads, and other things they 
could use. Gold and silver would have been of no value to 
them for they had never seen these metals. The only money 
the Indians used was round pieces of sea-shell, with holes 
bored through them. Before these people left their town they 
showed the white men how to hunt in the woods and how to 
plant corn. And their wives taught the white women how to 
make hominy out of corn and how to bake johnny-cakes. So 
the people of Maryland did not suffer from hunger like those 
of Virginia and New England, and they had plenty 
to eat and got along very well from the start. 

This was in the year 1634, just about the time 
Roger Williams went to Rhode 
Island. Lord Baltimore did the 
same thing that Roger Williams 
did ; he gave the people religious 
liberty. Every Christian who came 
to Maryland had the right to wor- 
ship God in his own way. Roger 
Williams went farther than this, for .: 
he gave the same right to Jews 
and all other people, whether they 

r r ^ J K COLONIAL SPINNING-WHEEL 

were Christians or pagans. 

It was not long before other people came to Maryland, 
and they began to plant tobacco, as the people were doing in 
Virginia. Tobacco was a good crop to raise, for it could be 
sold for a high price in England, so that the Maryland 
planters did very well, and many of them got to be rich. 
But religious liberty did not last there very long, and the 
Catholics were not much better off than they had been in 
England. All the poor people who came with Lord Balti- 
more were Protestants. Only the rich ones were Catholics. 




6o THE CA VALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 

Many other Protestants soon came, some of them being Puri- 
tans from New England, who did not know what religious 
liberty meant. 

These people said that the Catholics should not have the 
right to worship in their own churches, even in Maryland, 
and they went so far that they tried to take from Lord Balti- 
more the lands which the king had given him. There was 
much fighting between the Catholics and the Protestants. 
Now one party got the best of it, and now the other. In the 
end the province was taken from Lord Baltimore's son; and 
when a new king, named King William, came to the throne, 
he said that Maryland was his property, and 
strife Between ^^^ ^^ Catholics should not have a church of 

Protestants and . , . . , . . , 

Catholics their own or worship in their own way in that 

province. Do you not think this was very 
cruel and unjust ? It seems so to me. It did not seem 
right, after Lord Baltimore had given religious liberty to all 
men, for others to come and take it away. But the custom in 
those days was that all men must be made to think the same 
way, or be punished if they didn't. This seems queer now-a- 
days, when every man has the right to think as he pleases. 

In time there was born a Lord Baltimore who became a 
Protestant, and the province was given back to him. It grew 
rich and full of people, and large towns were built One of 
these was named Baltimore, after Lord Baltimore, and is now 
a great city. And Washington, the capital of the United 
States, stands on land that was once part of Maryland. But 
St. Mary's, the first town built, has gone, and there is hardly 
a mark left to show where it stood. 

Maryland, as I have said, lies north of Virginia. The 
Potomac River runs between them. South of Virginia was 
another great tract of land, extending all the way to Florida, 
which the Spaniards then held. Some French Protestants 



THE CA VALIER COLONIES OE THE SOUTH 6i 

tried to settle there, but they had been cruelly murdered by 
the Spaniards, and no one else came there for many years. 

About 1660 people began to settle in what was then 
called "the Carolinas," but is now called North Carolina and 
South Carolina. Some of these came from Virginia and 
some from England, and small settlements were made here 
and there along the coast. One of these was called Charles- 
ton. This has now grown into a large and important city. 

There were some noblemen in England who thought 
that this region might become worth much money, so they 
asked the king, Charles II., to give it to them. This was the 
same king who gave the Dutch settlement to the Duke of 
York and who afterwards gave Pennsylvania to William 
Penn. He was very ready to give away what did not belong 
to him, and told these noblemen that they 

1 .L i.i_ /- 1 • T-i- A Wonderful 

were welcome to the Carohnas. I here were ^ . 

Government 

eight of these men, and they made up their 
minds that they would have a very nice form of government 
for their new^ province. So they went to a celebrated philoso- 
pher named John Locke, and asked him to draw up a form of 
government for them. 

John Locke drew up a plan of government which they 
thought very fine, but which everybody now thinks was very 
foolish and absurd. I fancy he knew more about philosophy 
than he did about government. He called it the "Grand 
Model," and the noble lords thought they had a wonderful 
government indeed. There were to be earls, and barons, and 
lords, the same as in Europe. No one could vote who did not 
hold fifty acres. The poorer people were to be like so many 
slaves. They could not even leave one plantation for another 
without asking leave from the lord or baron who owned iL 

What do you think the people did? You must not 
imagine they came across the ocean to be made slaves of. 



62 THE CA VALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 

No, indeed! They cared no more for the "Grand Model" 
than if it was a piece of tissue paper. They settled where 
they pleased, and would not work for the earls and barons, 
and fought with the governors, and refused to pay the hea\y 
taxes which the eight noble owners asked. 

In time these noblemen got so sick of the whole business 
that they gave their province back to the king. It was then 
divided into two colonies, known as North Carolina and 
South Carolina. As for the lords and barons, nobody heard 
of them any more. 

The people of the Carolinas had other things beside 

the Grand Model government to trouble them. There were 

savage Indians back in the country who attacked them and 

killed many of them. And there were pirates 

Laws and Con- 2\ox\<^ the coast who attacked ships and killed 

ditions in 1,1 it-,- it- 1 i 

Former Times ^ ^^ board. But rice and mdigo were planted, 
and afterwards cotton, and much tar and tur- 
pentine were got from the pine trees in North Carolina, and 
as the years went on these colonies became rich and pros- 
perous, and the people began to have a happy time. 

I hope none of my young readers are tired of reading 
about kings and colonies. I am sure they must have enjoyed 
reading about John Smith and Miles Standish and William 
Penn and the rest of the great leaders. At any rate, there is 
only one more colony to talk about, and then we will be 
through with this pari; of our story. This is the colony of 
Georgia, which lies in the tract of land between South Caro- 
lina and Florida. 

I am sure that when you are done reading this book you 
will be glad that you did not live two or three hundred years 
ago. To-day every one can think as he pleases, and do as 
he pleases, too, if he does not break the laws. And the laws 
are much more just and less cruel than they were in former 



THE CA VALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 



63 



times. Why, in those days, every man who owed money and 
could not pay it might be put in prison and kept there for 
years. He could not work there and earn money to pay his 
debts, and if his friends did not pay them he might stay there 
till he died. As I have told you, even the good William 
Penn was put in prison for debt, and kept there till his friends 
paid the money. 

There were as many poor debtors in prison as there 
were thieves and villains. Some of them took sick and died, 
and some were starved to death by cruel jailors, who would 
not give them anything to eat if they had no money to pay 



and good man, 
Oglethorpe, 
was so sorry 




A CHAISE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY 



for food. One great 
named General James 
visited the prisons, and 
for the poor debtors he 
saw there, that he asked 
the king to give him a 
piece of land in Amer- 
ica where he could take 
some of these suffer- 
ing people. 

There was now not much land left to give. Settlements 
had been made all along the coast except south of the Caro- 
linas, and the king told General Oglethorpe that he could 
have the land which lay there, and could take as many 
debtors out of prison as he chose. He thought it would be 
a good thing to take them somewhere where they could work 
and earn their living. The king who was then on the throne 
was named King George, so Oglethorpe called his new colony 
Georgia. 

It was now the year 1733, a hundred years after Lord 
Baltimore had come to Maryland. General Oglethorpe took 
many of the debtors out of prison, and very glad they were 



64 



THE CA VALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 



to get out, you may be sure. He landed with them on the 
banks of a fine river away down South, where he laid out a 
town which he named Savannah. 

The happy debtors now found themselves in a broad and 
beautiful land, where they could prove w^hether they were 
ready to work or not. They were not long in doing this. 
Right away they began to cut down trees, and build houses, 
and plant fields, and very soon a pretty town was to be seen 
and food plants were growing in the fields. And very happy 
men and women these poor people were. 

General Oglethorpe knew as well as William Penn that 
the land did not belong ^^^ to the king. 

He sent for the .,.<s^^^^^fei»«s» .^^ w I Indian 

chiefs 




OLD SPANISH HOUSE ON BOURBON STREET, NEW ORLEANS 



and told them the land was theirs, and offered to pay them 
for it. They were quite willing to sell, and soon he had all 
the land he wanted, and what is more, he had the Indians 
for friends. 

But if he had no trouble with the Indians, he had a good 
deal with the Spaniards of Florida. They said that Georgia 
was a part of Florida and that the English had no right there. 
And they sent an army and tried to drive them out 



THE CA VALIER COLONIES OF THE SOUTH 65 

I fancy they did not know that Oglethorpe was an old 
soldier, but he soon showed them that he knew how to fight. 
He drove back their armies and took their ships, and they 
quickly made up their minds that they had better let the Eng- 
lish alone. There was plenty of land for both, for the Span- 
iards had only one town in Florida. This was St. Augustine. 

Before long some Germans came from Europe and settled 
in the new colony. People came also from 
other parts of Europe. Corn was planted for coiJ*n^^^""^ 
food, and some of the colonists raised silk- 
worms and made silk. But in the end, cotton came to be the 
chief crop of the colony. 

General Oglethorpe lived to be a very old man. He did 
not die till long after the American Revolution. Georgia was 
then a flourishing state, and the little town he had started on 
the banks of the Savannah River was a fine city, with broad 
streets, fine mansions, and beautiful shade trees. I think the 
poor old man must have been very proud of this charming 
city, and of the great state which owed its start to him. 



<^^^- 





CHAPTER VI 




The Red flen; What They were Like 
and How They were Treated 

OW that you have been told about the settle- 
ment of the colonies, it is well to recall how 
many of them there were. Let us see. There 
were the Pilgrim and Puritan settlements of 
New England, Roger Williams's settlement in 
Rhode Island, the Dutch settlement in New York, the Quaker 
one in Pennsylvania, the Catholic settlement in Maryland, the 
Cavalier ones in Virginia and the Carolinas, and the Debtor 
settlement in Georgia. Then there were some smaller ones, 
making about a dozen in all. 

These stretched all along the coast, from Canada, the 
French country in the north, to Florida, the Spanish country 
in the south. The British were a long time in settling these 
places, for nearly 250 years passed after the time of Columbus 
before General Oglethorpe came to Georgia. 

While all this was going on, what was becoming of the 
native people of the country, the Indians ? I am afraid they 
were having a very hard time of it. The Spaniards made 



66 



THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 



67 



slaves of them, and forced them to work so terribly hard in 
the mines and the fields that they died by thousands. The 
French and the English fought with them and drove them away 
from their old homes, killing many of them. 

And this has gone on and on ever since, until the red 
men, who once spread over all this country, are now kept in 
a very small part of it. Some people say there are as many 
of them as there 
ever were. If that 
is so, they can live 
on much less land 
than they once 
occupied. 

What do you 
know about these 
Indians ? Have 
you ever seen one 
of them ? Your 
fathers or grand- 
fathers have, I am 
sure, for once they 
were everywhere 
in this country, 
and people saw 
more of them than 
they liked ; but 

now we see them only in the Wild West shows or the Indian 
schools, except we happen to go where they live. Do you not 
want to know something about these oldest Americans ? I 
have been busy so far talking about the white men and what 
they did, and have had no chance to tell you about the people 
they found on this continent and how they treated them. I 

think I must make this chapter an Indian one. 
5 




INDIAN TOTEM POLES 



68 THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 

Well, then, when the Spanish came to the south, and the 
French to the north, and the Dutch and the Swedes and the 
British to the middle country, they found every where a kind 
of people they had never seen before. Their skin was 
not white, like that of the people of Europe, nor black like 
that of the Africans, but of a reddish color, like that of copper, 
so that they called them red men. They had black eyes and 
hair, and high cheek-bones, and were not handsome accord- 
ing to our ideas ; but they were tall and strong, and many of 
them very proud and dignified. 

These people lived in a very wild fashion. They spent 

much of their time in hunting, fishing and fighting. They 

raised some Indian corn and beans, and were fond of tobacco, 

but most of their food was got from wild 

Customs and animals killed in the woods. They were as 

Manners of ■' 

Living fond of fighting as they were of hunting. They 

were divided into tribes, some of which were 
nearly always at war with other tribes. They had no weapons 
but stone hatchets and bows and arrows, but they were able 
with these to kill many of their enemies. People say that they 
were badly treated by the whites, but they treated one another 
worse than the whites ever did. 

The Indians were very cruel. The warriors shaved off 
all their hair except one lock, which was called the scalp lock. 
When one of them was killed in battle this lock was used to 
pull off his scalp, or the skin of his head. They were very 
proud of these scalps, for they showed how many men they 
had killed. 

When they took a prisoner, they would tie him to a tree 
and build a fire round him and burn him to death. And 
while he was burning they would torture him all they could. 
We cannot feel so much pity for the Indians when we think 
of all this. No doubt the white men have treated them very 



THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 



69 



unjustly, but they have stopped all these terrible cruelties, and 
that is something to be thankful for. In this country, where 
once there was constant war and bloodshed, and torturing 
and burning of prisoners, now there is peace and kindness 
and happiness. So if evil has been done, good has come of it. 

At the time I am speaking of, forests covered much 
of this great continent. They spread everywhere, and the 
Indians lived under their shade, and had wonderful skill in 
following animals or 
enemies through their 
shady depths. They 
read the ground much 
as we read the pages 
of a book. A broken 
twig, a bit of torn 
moss, a footprint which 
we could not see, were 
full of meaning to 
them, and they would 
follow a trail for miles 
through the woods 
where we would not 
have been able to fol- 
low it a yard. Their 
eyes were trained to 
this kind of work, but in time some of the white men became 
as expert as the Indians, and could follow a trail as well. 

The red men lived mostly in little huts covered with 
Iskins or bark, which they called wigwams. " Some of the tribes 
lived in villages, where there were large bark houses. But 
they did not stay much in their houses, for they liked better 
to be in the open air. Now they were hunting deer in the 
woods, now fishing or paddling their bark canoes in the 




INDIAN VILLAGE ENCLOSED WITH PALISADES 



70 THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 

streams, now smoking their pipes in front of their huts now 
dancing their war dances or getting ready to fight. 

The men did no work but hunting and fighting. The 
women had to do all other work, such as cooking, planting 
and gathering corn, building wigwams, and the like. They 
did some weaving of cloth, but most of their clothes were 
made of the skins of wild animals. 

The warriors tried to make themselves as ugly as they 
could in war times, painting their faces in a horrid fashion 
and sticking feathers in their hair. They seemed to think 
they could scare their enemies by ugly faces. 

I have spoken of the tribes of the Indians. Some of 

these tribes were quite large, and were made up of a large 

number of men and women who lived together 

e u ern ^^^ spoke the same language. Each tribe was 

divided up into clans, or small family-like 

groups, and each clan had its sachem, or peace-chief. There 

were war-chiefs, also, who led them to battle. The sachems 

and chiefs governed the tribes and made such laws as they had. 

Every clan had some animal which it called its totem, 
such as the wolf, bear, or fox. They were proud of their 
totems, and the form of the animal was tattooed on their 
breast ; that is, it was picked into the skin with needles. All 
the Indians were fond of dancing, and their war dances were 
as fierce and wild as they could make them. 

The tribes in the south were not as savage as those in 
the north. They did more farming, and had large and well- 
built villages. Some of them had temples and priests, and ' 
looked upon the sun as a god. They kept a fire always 
burning in the temple, and seemed to think this fire was a 
part of their sun-god. They had a great chief who ruled 
over the tribe, and also a head war-chief, a highpriest, and 
other rulers. 



THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 



71 



In the far .west were Indians who built houses that were 
almost like towns, for they had hundreds of rooms. A whole 
tribe could live in one of these great houses, sometimes as 
many as three thousand people. Other tribes lived in holes in 
the sides of steep rocks, where their enemies could not easily 
g-et at them. These are called Cliff-dwellers. And there were 
some who lived on top of high, steep hills, which were very 
hard to climb. These Indians raised large crops of corn and 
other plants. 

Do you think, if you had been an Indian, you would 
have liked to see white peo- 
ple coming in ships across 
the waters and settling down 
in your country as if they 
owned it? They did not all 
pay for the land they took, 
like William Penn and Gen- 
eral Oglethorpe. The most 
of them acted as if the coun- 
try belonged to them, and it 
is no wonder the old owners 
of the country did not like 
it, or that there was fierce fighting between the white and 
the red men. 

Do you remember the story of Canonicus and the snake 
skin, and that of Miles Standish and the chiefs ? There was 
not much fighting then, but there was some soon after in 
Connecticut, whither a number of settlers had come from 
Boston and others from England. Here there was a warlike 
tribe called the Pequots, who became very angry on seeing 
the white men in their country. 

They began to kill the whites whenever they found them 
alone. Then the whites began to kill the Indians. Soon 




:. >-^0l^/M>i.fS , crti/jj:,^jrji,,\ 



OLD WAY OF BROILING FISH 



72 THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 

there was a deadly war. The Pequots had made a fort of 
trunks of trees, set close together in the ground. They 
thought they were safe in this fort, but the English made an 
attack on it, and got into it, and set fire to the Indian wig- 
wams inside. The fight went on terribly in the smoke and 
flame until nearly all the Pequots were killed. Only two 
white men lost their lives. This so scared the Indians that 
it was forty years before there was another Indian war in 
New England. 

I have told you about the good chief Massasoit, who was 
so kind to Roger Williams. He was a friend to the white 
men as long as he lived, but after his death his son Philip 
became one of their greatest enemies. 

Philip's brother took sick and died after he had been to 

Plymouth, and the Indians thought that the people there had 

given him poison. Philip said that they would 

..-^1^^*^ try to kill him next, and he made up his mind 

the Indians -^ ' r 

to fight them and drive them out of the country. 
The Indians had guns now, and knew how to use them, and 
they began to shoot the white people as they Avent quietly 
along the roads. 

Next they began to attack the villages of the whites. 
They would creep up at night, set the houses on fire, and 
shoot the men as they came out. The war went on for a 
long time in this way, and there were many terrible fights. 

At one place the people, when they saw the Indians 
coming, all ran to a strong building called a block-house. 
The Indians came whooping and yelling around this, and 
tried to set it on fire by shooting arrows with blazing rags on 
their points. Once the roof caught fire, but some of the men 
ran up and threw water on the flames. 

Then the Indians got a cart and filled it with hay. Set- 
ting this on fire, they pushed it up against the house. It 



THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 73 

looked as if all the white men and women and children would 
De burned alive. The house caught fire and began to blaze. 
But just then came a shower of rain that put out the fire, 
and the people inside were saved once more. Before the 
Indians could do anything further some white soldiers came 
and the savages all ran into the woods. 

There were other wonderful escapes, but many of the 
settlers were killed, and Philip began to think he would be 
able to drive them out of the country, as he wished to do. 
He was called King Philip, though he had no crown except 
a string of wampum, — or bits of bored shell 
strung together and twined round his head, — ^"^ * *^ ^ 
and no palace better than a bark hut, while his 
finest dress was a red blanket. It took very little to make 
an Indian king. The white men knew more about war than 
the Indians, and in the end they began to drive them back. 
One of their forts was taken, and the wigwams in it were set 
on fire, like those of the Pequots. A great many of the poor 
red men perished in the flames. 

The best fighter among the white men was Captain 
Church. He followed King Philip and his men to one hiding 
place after another, killing some and taking others prisoners. 
Among the prisoners were the wife and little son of the 
Indian king. 

''It breaks my heart," said Philip, when he heard of this. 
" Now I am ready to die." 

He did not live much longer. Captain Church chased 
him from place to place, till he came to Mount Hope, in 
Rhode Island, where Massasoit lived when Roger Williams 
came to him through the woods. Here King Philip was shot, 
and the war ended. It had lasted more than a year, and a 
large number had been killed on both sides. It is known in 
history as King Philip's War. 



74 THE RED MEN— HOW THEY WERE TREATED 

There were wars with the Indians in many other parts of 
the country. In Virginia the Indians made a plot to kill all 
the white people. They pretended to be very friendly, and 
brought them meat and fish to sell. While they were talking 
quietly the savages drew their tomahawks and began to kill 
the whites. In that one morning nearly three hundred and 
fifty were killed, men, women, and little children. 

Hardly any of the settlers were left alive, except those in 
Jamestown, who were warned in time. They now attacked 
the Indians, shooting down all they could find, and killing a 
great many of them. 

This was after the death of Powhatan, who had been a 

friend to the whites. About twenty years later, in 1644, 

another Indian massacre took place. After 

Massacres ^^^^ ^^ Indians were driven far back into the 

country, and did not give any more trouble for 

thirty years. The last war with them broke out in 1675. 

The Dutch in New York also had their troubles with the 
Indians. They paid for all the lands they took, but one of 
their governors was foolish enough to start a war that went 
on for two years. A worse trouble was that in North Caro- 
lina, where there was a powerful tribe called the Tuscaroras. 
These attacked the settlers and murdered numbers of them. 
But in the end they were driven out of the country. 

The only colonies in which the Indians kept friendly for 
a long time were Pennsylvania and Georgia. We know the 
reason of this. William Penn and General Oglethorpe were 
wise enough to make friends with them at the start, and con- 
tinued to treat them with justice and friendliness, so that the 
red men came to love these good men. 




xioaxKOOOOooooocxxxxxKOooxaxuoooooooi — 



CHAPTER VII 



Royal Governors and Loyal Captains. 




O any of my young readers know what is meant 
by a Charter? ''Yes," I hear some of you say. 
" No," say others. Well, I must speak to the 
" No " party ; the party that don't know, and 
wants to know. 
A charter is a written or printed document which grants 
certain rights or privileges to the party to whom it is given. 
It may come from a King or a Congress, or from any person 
in power, and be given to any other person who wishes the 
right to hold a certain property or to do some special thing. 

Do you understand any better now ? I am sorry I can 
not put it in plainer words. I think the best way will be to 
tell you about some charters which belong to American his- 
tory. You should know that all the people who crossed the 
ocean to make new settlements on the Atlantic Coast had 
charters from the king of England. This was the case with 
the Pilgrims and the Puritans, with Roger Williams, William 
Penn, Lord Baltimore, and the others I have spoken about. 

75 



76 ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS 

These charters were great documents written on parch- 
ment, and giving these people the right to settle on and own 
certain lands, to form certain kinds of government, and to do 
a variety of things which in England no one could do but the 
king and the parliament. 

The colonies in New England were given the right to 
choose their own governors and make their own laws, and 
nobody, not even the king, could stop them from doing this. 
The king had given them this right, and no other king could 
take it away while they kept their charters. 

Would you care to be told what took place afterwards ? 

All kings, you should know, are not alike. Some are very 

mild and easy, and some are very harsh and severe. Some 

are willing for the people to have liberty, and 

Charters of some are not. The kine^s who erave the charters 

the Colonies ^ ^ 

to New England were of the easy kind. But 
they were followed by kings of the hard kind, who thought 
that these people beyond the sea had too much liberty, and 
who wished to take away some of it. 

Charles II., who gave some of these charters, was one of 
the easy kings, and did not trouble himself about the people 
in the colonies. James II., who came after him, was one of 
the hard kings. He was a good deal of a tyrant, and wanted 
to make the laws himself, and take the right to do this from 
the people. After trying to rob the people of England of 
their liberties, he thought he would do the same thing with 
the people of America. '* Those folks across the seas are 
having too good a time," he thought. "They have too many 
rights and privileges, and I must take some of them away. I 
will let them know that I am their master." 

But they had their charters, which gave them these rights ; 
so the wicked king thought the first thing for him to do was 
to lake their charters away from them. Then their rights 



ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS 



11 



would be gone, and he could make for them a new set of 
laws, and force them to do everything he wished. 

What King James did was to send a nobleman named 
Sir Edmund Andros to New England to rule as royal gov- 
ernor.. He was the agent of the king, and was to do all that 
the king ordered. One of the first things he was to do was 
to rob the people %^ of their charters. You see, even 
a tyrant ■'^ ^^ king did not like to go against the 

charters, ^ '^^^'^ for a charter was a sacred pledge^ 




OLD GATES AT ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA 



Well, the new governor went 
about ordering the people to give him 
their charters. One of the places he went to 
was Hartford, Connecticut, and there he told the officers of the 
colony that they must deliver up their charter ; the king had 
said so, and the king's word must be obeyed. 

If any of you had lived in Connecticut in those days 1 
know how you would have felt. The charter gave the people 
a great deal of liberty, and they did not wish to part with it. 
I know that you and I would have felt the same way. But 
what could they do ? If they did not give it up peacefully, 



78 ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS 

Governor Andros might come again with soldiers and take it 
from them by force. So the governor and the lawmakers 
and officials were in a great fret about what they should do. 

They asked Governor Andros to come to the statehouse 
and talk over the matter. Some of them fancied they could 
get him to leave them their charter, though they might have 
known better. There they sat — the governor in the lofty chair of 
state, the others seated in a half circle before him. There was a 
broad table between them, and on this lay the great parchment 
of the charter. Some of those present did a great deal of talk- 
ing. They said how good King Charles had given them the 
charter, and how happy they had been under it, and how loyal 
they were to good King James, and they begged 
Til J! ^^^ Governor Andros not to take it from them. 

at Hartford 

But they might as well have talked to the walls. 
He had his orders from the king and was one of the men 
who do just what they are told. 

While the talk was going on a strange thing happened. 
It was night, and the room was lit up with a few tallow can- 
dles. Of course you know that these were the best lights 
people had at that time ; gas or the electric light had never 
been heard of And it was before the time of matches. The 
only way to make a light in those days was by use of the 
flint and steel, which was a very slow method indeed. 

Suddenly, while one of the Hartford men was talking and 
the governor was looking at him in a tired sort of way, all the 
lights in the room went out, and the room was in deep dark- 
ness. Everybody jumped up from their chairs and there was 
no end of bustle and confusion, and likely enough some 
pretty hard words were said. They had to hunt in the dark 
for the flint and steel ; and then there came snapping of steel 
on flint, and falling of sparks on tinder, so that it was some 
time before the candles were lit again. 



ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS 79 

When this was done the governor opened his eyes very 
wide, for the table was empty, the charter was gone. I fancy 
he swore a good deal when he saw that. In those days even 
the highest people were given to swearing. But no matter 
how much he swore, he could not bring the charter back 
with hard words. It was gone, and nobody knew where. 
Everybody looked for it, right and left, in and out, in drawers 
and closets, but it was nowhere to be found. Very likely the 
most of them did not want to find it. At any rate, the gov- 
ernor had to go away without the charter, and years passed 
before anybody saw it again. 

Do you not wish to know what became of it? We are 
told that it had been taken by a bold young soldier named 
Captain Wadsworth. While all the people in the room were 
looking at the one who was making his speech, the Captain 
quickly took off his cloak and gave it a quick 
fling^ over the candles, so that in a moment ^. ^^ ^ , 

^ ' Charter Oak 

they were all put out. Then he snatched up 
the charter from the table and slipped quietly out of the room. 
While they were busy snapping the flint and steel, he was 
hurrying down the street towards a great oak tree which was 
more than a hundred years old. This tree was hollow in its 
heart, and there was a hole in its side which opened into the 
hollow. Into this hole Captain Wadsworth pushed the charter, 
and it fell into the hollow space. I do not think any of us 
would have thought of looking there for it. I know nobody 
did at that time, and there it lay for years, until the tyrant 
King James was driven from the throne and a new king had 
taken his place. Then it was joyfully brought out, and the 
people were ever so glad to see it again. 

The old tree stood for many years in the main street of 
the town, and became famous as the Charter Oak. The 
people loved and were proud of it as long as it stood. But 



8o ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS 

many years ago the hoary old oak fell, and now only some of 
its wood is left. This has been made into chairs and boxes 
and other objects which are thought of great value. 

Do you not think that Captain Wadsworth was a bold 
and daring man, and one who knew just what to do in times 
of trouble ? If you do not, I fancy you will when I have told 
you another story about him. 

This took place after the charter had been taken from the 
oak and brought to the state-house again. At this time there 
was a governor in New York named Fletcher, who claimed 
that the king had given him the right to command the militia, 
or citizen soldiers, of Connecticut. So he came 
*u^r.^** ^ to Hartford, where Captain Wadsworth was in 

the Drummers ' i^ 

command, and where the people did not want 
any stranger to have power over them. He told the captain 
what he had come for, and that he had a commission to read 
to the soldiers. 

The militia were called out and drawn up in line in the 
public square of the town, and Governor Fletcher came before 
them, full of his importance. He took out of his pocket the 
paper which he said gave himi the right to command, and 
began to read it in a very proud and haughty manner. But 
he had not read ten words when Captain Wadsworth told the 
drummers to beat their drums, and before you could draw 
your breath there was such a rattle and roll of noise that not 
a word could be heard. 

"Silence!" cried Fletcher. " Stop those drums 1 " The 
drums stopped, and he began to read again. 

" Drum !" ordered Wadsworth in a loud tone, and such 
a noise began that a giant's voice would have been drowned. 

"Silence!" again shouted Fletcher. He was very red 
in the face by this time. 

"Drum, I say!" roared the captain. 




BACON DEMANDING HIS COMMISSION OF GOVERNOR BERKELEY. 



82 ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPI^AINS 

Then he turned to the governor and said, laying his hand 
on his sword, " I command these men, Governor Fletcher, 
and if you interrupt me again I will make the sun shine 
through you in a minute." And he looked as if he meant 
what he said. All the governor's pomp and consequence 
were gone, and his face turned from red to pale. He hastily 
thrust the paper back into his pocket, and was not long in 
leaving Hartford for New York. No doubt he thought that 
Connecticut was not a good place for royal governors. 

Suppose I now tell you the story of another royal gov- 
ernor and another bold captain. This was down in Virginia, 
but it was long after Captain Smith was dead and after Vir- 
ginia had become a large and prosperous colony. 

The king sent there a governor named Berkeley, who 
acted as if he was master and all the people were his slaves. 
They did not like to be treated this way ; but 
R^bTr Berkeley had soldiers under his command, and 

they were forced to obey. While this was go- 
ing on the Indians began to murder the settlers. The gov- 
ernor ought to have stopped them, but he was afraid to call 
out the people, and he let the murders go on. 

There was a young man named Nathaniel Bacon who 
asked Governor Berkeley to let him raise some men to fight 
the Indians. The governor refused. But this did not stop 
brave young Bacon, for he called out a force of men and 
drove off the murdering savages. 

Governor Berkeley was very angry at this. He said that 
Bacon was a traitor and ought to be treated like one, and that 
the men with him were rebels. Bacon at once marched with 
his men against Jamestown, and the haughty governor ran 
away as fast as he could. 

But while Bacon and his men were fighting the Indians 
again, Governor Berkeley came back and talked more than 



ROYAL GOVERNORS AND LOYAL CAPTAINS St, 

ever about rebels and traitors. This made Bacon and the 
people with him very angry. To be treated in this way while 
they were saving the people from the Indian knife and toma- 
hawk was too bad. They marched against Jamestown again. 
This time the governor did not run away, but prepared to 
defend the place with soldiers and cannon. 

But they did not fire their guns. Bacon had captured 
some of the wives of the principal men, and he put them in 
front of his line as he advanced. The governor did not dare 
bid his soldiers to fire on these women, so he left the town 
again in a hurry, and it was taken by the Indian fighters. 

Bacon made up his mind that Governor Berkeley should 
not come back to Jamestown again. He had the town set on 
fire and burned to the ground. Some of the 
men with him set fire to their own houses, so , * " ** 

' Jamestown 

that they should not give shelter to the governor 
and his men. That was the end of Jamestown. It was never 
rebuilt. Only ashes remained of the first English town in 
America. To-day there is only an old church tower to show 
where it stood. 

We cannot tell what might have happened if brave young 
Bacon had lived. As it was, he took sick and died. His men 
now had no leader, and soon dispersed. Then the governor 
came back full of fury, and began to hang all those who 
opposed him. He might have put a great many of them 
to death if the king had not stopped him and ordered him 
back to England. This was King Charles 11. , whose father 
had been put to death by Cromwell. He was angry at what 
Governor Berkeley had done, and said : 

" That old fool has hung more men in that naked land 
than I did for the murder of my father." 




CHAPTER VIII 

Old Times in the Colonies 

HAT a wonderful change has come over this 
great country of ours since the days of our 
grandfathers ! Look at our great cities, with 
their grand buildings, and their miles of streets, 
with swift-speeding electric cars, and thousands 
of carriages and wagons, and great stores lit by brilliant 
electric lights, and huge workshops filled with rattling wheels 
and marvelous machines ! And look at our broad fields filled 
with cattle or covered by growing crops, and divided by 
splendid highways and railroads thousands of miles in length ' 
Is it not all very wonderful ? 

" But has it not always been this way?" some very young 
persons ask. " I have lived so many years and have never 
seen anything else." 

My dear young friend, if you had lived fifty or sixty years, 
as many of us older folks have, you would have seen very 
different things. And if we had lived as long ago as our 
grandfathers did, and then come back again to-day, I fancy 
our eyes would open wider than Governor Andros's did when 
he saw that the charter was gone. 

In those days, as I told you, when any one wanted to 
make a light, he could not strike a match and touch it to a 
gas jet as we do, but must hammer away with flint and steel, 
and then had nothing better than a home-made tallow candle 
to light. Why, I am sure that many of you never even saw 

S4 



OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 



85 



a pair of snuffers, which people then used to cut off the 
candle wick. 

Some of you who live in old houses with dusty lofts 
under the roof, full of worm-eaten old furniture, have, no 
doubt, found there odd-looking wooden frames and wheels, 
and queer old tools of various kinds. Sometimes these 
wheels are brought down stairs and set in the hall as some- 
thing to be proud of And the old eight-day clocks stand 
there, too, with their loud "tick-tack," buzzing and ticking 
away to-day as if they had not done so for a hundred years. 




The wheels I speak of are 
the old spinning wheels, 
with which our great- 
grandmothers spun flax 
into thread. This thread they wove into homespun cloth on 
old-fashioned looms. All work of this kind used to be done 
at home, though now it is done in great factories, and we buy 
our clothes in the stores, instead of spinning and weaving 
and sewing them in the great old kitchens before the wood- 
fire on the hearth. 

Really, I am afraid many of you do not know how people 
lived in the old times. They are often spoken of as the 
"good old times." I fancy you will hardly think so when T 
have told you something more about them. Would you think 
it very good to have to get up in a freezing cold room, and 



86 OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 

go down and pump ice-cold water to wash your face, and go 
out in the snow to get wood to make the fire, and shiver for 
an hour before the house began to warm up ? That is only 
one of the things you would not think good. I shall certainly 
have to stop here and tell you about how people lived in old 
times, and then you can say if you would like to go back 
to them. 

Would any boy and girl among you care to live in a 

little one-story house, made of rough logs laid one on 

another, and with a roof of thatch — that is, of straw or reeds, 

or anything that would keep out the rain ? 

Old Time yy t vu i i. 

Houses Houses, I mean, with only one or two rooms, 

and some of them with chimneys made of wood, 
plastered with clay on the inside so that they could not be set 
on fire. These were the oldest houses. Later on people began 
to build larger houses, many of which were made of brick or 
stone. But I am afraid there was not much comfort in the 
best of them. They had no stoves, and were heated by great 
stone fireplaces, where big logs of wood were burned. They 
made a bright and cheerful blaze, it is true, but most of the 
heat went roaring up the wide chimney, and only a little of it 
got out into the room. In the winter the people lived in their 
kitchens, with the blazing wood-fire for heat and light, and at 
bed-time went shivering off to ice-cold rooms. Do you think 
you would have enjoyed that ? 

They had very little furniture, and the most of what they 
had was rude and rough, much of it chopped out of the trees 
by the farmer's axe. Some of the houses had glass windows 
— little diamond-shaped panes, set in lead frames — but most 
of them had nothing but oiled paper, which kept out as much 
light as it let in. 

All the cooking was done on the great kitchen hearth, 
where the pots were hung on iron cranes and the pans set on 



OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 



87 



the blazing coals. They did not have as much food to cook as 
we have. Mush and milk, or pork and beans, were their usual 
food, and their bread was mostly made of rye or cornmeal. 
The boys and girls who had nice books they wanted to read 
often had to do so by the light of the kitchen fire ; but I can 
tell you that books were very scarce things in those days. 

If any of us had lived then I know how glad we would 
have been to see the bright spring time, with its flowers and 
warm sunshine. But we might have shivered again when we 
thought of next winter. 
Of course, the people 
had some good times. 
They had Thanksgiv- 
ing-day, when the table 
was filled with good 
things to eat, and elec- 
tion-day and training- 
day, when they had 
outdoor sports. And 
they had quilting and 
husking-parties, and 
spinning bees, and 
sleigh-rides and picnics 
and other amusements. 
A wedding was a happy time, and even a funeral was followed 
by a great dinner. But after all there was much more hard 
work than holiday, and nearly everybody had to labor long 
and got little for it. They were making themselves homes 
and a country, you know, and it was a very severe task. We, 
to-day, are getting the good of their work. 

Down South people had more comfort. The weather 
was not nearly so cold, so they did not have to keep up such 
blazing fires or shiver in their cold beds. Many of the rich 




A PIONEER'S CABIN 



88 OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 

planters built themselves large mansions of wood or brick, 
and brought costly furniture from England, and lived in great 
show, with gold and silverware on their sideboards and fine 
coaches drawn by handsome horses when they went abroad. 

In New York the Dutch built quaint old houses, of the 
kind used in Holland. In Philadelphia the Quakers lived in 
neat two-storied houses, with wide orchards and gardens round 
them, where they raised plenty of fruit. When any one 
opened a shop, he would hang out a basket, a wooden anchor, 
or some such sign to show what kind of goods he had to sell. 

In New England Sunday was kept in a very strict fashion, 
for the people were very religious. It was thought wicked to 
play, or even to laugh, on Sunday, and everybody had to go 
to church. All who did not g'o were punished. 
ChurciTGoinff And, mercy on us, what sermons they preached 
in those cold old churches, prosing away some- 
times for three or four hours at a time ! The boys and girls 
had to listen to them, as well as the men and women, and 
you know how hard it is now to listen for one hour. 

If they got sleepy, as no doubt they often did, and went 
off into a snooze, they were soon wide awake again. For the 
constable went up and down the aisles with a long staff in his 
hand. This had a rabbit's foot on one end of it and a rabbit's 
tail on the other. If he saw one of the women asleep he 
would draw the rabbit's tail over her face. But if a boy took 
a nap, down would come the rabbit's foot in a sharp rap on 
his head, and up he would start very wide awake. To-day 
we would call that sort of sermons cruelty to children, and 
I think it was cruelty to the old folks also. 

Do you think those were "good old times" ? I imagine 
some of you will fancy they were "bad old times." But they 
were not nearly so bad as you may think. For you must 
bear in mind that the people knew nothing of many of the 



OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 



89 



things we enjoy. They were used to hard work and plain 
food and coarse furniture and rough clothes and cold rooms, 
and were more hardy and could stand more than people who 
sleep in furnace-heated rooms and have their tables heaped 
with all kinds of fruits and vegetables and meats. 

But there was one thing that could not have been pleas- 
ant, and that was, their being afraid all the time of the Indians, 
and having to carry muskets with them even when they went 
to church. ' All around them were the forests in which the 
wild red men roamed, and their cruel yell might be heard at 
any time, or a sharp arrow whiz out from the thick leaves. 

The farm-houses 
were built like forts, 
and in all the villages 
were strong buildings 
called block-houses, 
to which everybody 
could run in times of 
danger. In these the 
second story spread 
out over the first, and 
there w^ere holes in 
the floor through which the men could fire down on the 
Indians below. But it makes us tremble to think that, at any 
time, the traveler or farmer might be shot down by a lurking 
savage, or might be seized and burned alive. We can hardly 
w^onder that the people grew to hate the Indians and to kill 
them or drive them away. 

There was much game in the woods and the rivers were 
full of fish, so that many of the people spent their time in 
hunting and fishing. They got to be as expert in this as the 
Indians themselves, and some of them could follow a trail as 
well as the most sharp-sighted of the red men. 




AN OLD iVlEbTING HOUSE OR CHURCH 



90 OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 

Some of you may have read Fenimore Cooper's novels 
of Indian life, and know what a wonderful hunter and Indian 
trailer old Natty Bumppo was. But we do not need to go to 
novels to read about great hunters, for the life of Daniel 
Boone is as full of adventure as that of any of the heroes of 
Indian life. 

Daniel Boone was the most famous hunter this country 
has ever known. He lived much later than the early times I 
am talking about, but the country he lived in was as wild as 
that found by the first settlers of the country. When he was 
only a little boy he went into the deep woods 
Hunter* ^^*^ \\^^^ there by himself for several days, 

shooting game and making a fire to cook it by. 
He made himself a little hut of boughs and sods, and lived 
there like an Indian, and there is where his father and friends 
found him when they came seeking him in the woods. 

Years afterwards he crossed the high mountains of North 
Carolina and went into the great forest of Kentucky, where 
only Indians and wild animals lived. For a long time he 
stayed there by himself, with the Indians hunting and trying 
to kill him. But he was too wide awake for the smartest of 
them all. 

One time, when they were close on his trail, he got away 
from them by catching hold of a loose grape-vine and making 
a long swinging jump, and then running on. When the 
Indians got there they lost the marks of his foot-prints and 
gave up the chase. At another time when he was taken 
prisoner .he got up, took one of their guns, and slipped away 
from them without one of them waking up. 

Many years afterwards, when he and others had built a 
fort in Kentucky, and brought out their wives and children, 
Boone's daughters and two other girls were carried off by 
Indians while they were out picking wild flowers. 



OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES 91 

Boone and other hunters were soon on their trail, and fol- 
lowed it by the broken bushes and bits of torn dress which the 
wide-awake little girls had left behind them. In this way they 
came up to the Indians while they were eating their supper, 
fired on them, and then ran up and rescued the girls. These 
young folks did not go out of the fort to pick wild flowers 
after that. 

Once Daniel Boone was taken prisoner, and would have 
been burned alive if an old woman had not taken him for her 
son. The Indians painted his face and made him wear an 
Indian dress and live with them as one of themselves. But 
one day he heard them talking, and found that they were 
going to attack the fort where all his friends 
were. Then he slipped out of the villag^e and J^^ ^^"® 

^^ o Escaped 

ran away. He had a long journey to make 
and the Indians followed him close. But he walked in the 
water to hide his footsteps, and lived on roots and berries, 
for fear they would hear his gun if he shot any game. In 
the end he got back safe to the fort. He found it in bad con- 
dition, but he set the men to make it strong, and when the 
Indians came they were beaten off 

Daniel Boone lived to be a very old man, and kept going 
farther west to get away from the new people who were com- 
ing into the Kentucky forest. He said he wanted " elbow 
room." He spent all the rest of his life hunting, and the 
Indians looked on him as the greatest woodsman and the most 
wonderful hunter the white men ever had. 




CHAPTER IX 

A Hero of the Colonies 

O you not think there are a good many interesting 
stories in American history ? I have told you 
some, and I could tell you many more. I am 
going to tell you one now, about a brave young 
man who had a great deal to do with the mak- 
ing of our glorious country. But to reach it we will have to 
take a step backward over one hundred and fifty years. That 
is a pretty long step, isn't it? It takes us away back to about 
the year 1750. But people had been coming into this coun- 
try for more than a hundred and fifty years before that, and 
there were a great many white men and women in America 
at that time. 

These people came from Spain and France and Great 
Britain and Holland and Germany and Sweden and other 
countries besides. The Spaniards had spread through many 
regions in the south ; the French had gone west by way of 
the Great Lakes and then down the Mississippi River ; but the 
British were settled close to the ocean, and the country 
back of them was still forest land, where only wild men and 
wild beasts lived. That is the way things were situated at 
the time of the story which I now propose to tell. 

The young man I am about to speak of knew almost as 
much about life in the deep woods as Daniel Boone, the great 
hunter, of whom I have just told you. Why, when he was 

only sixteen years old he and another boy went far back into 
92 



A HERO OF THE COLONIES 



93 



the wild country of Virginia to survey or measure the lands 
there for a rich land-holder. 

The two boys crossed the rough mountains and went into 
the broad valley of the Shenandoah River, and for months 
they lived there alone in the broad forest. There were no 
roads through the woods and they had to make their own 
paths. When they were hungry they would shoot a wild 
turkey or a squirrel, or sometimes a deer. They would cook 
their meat by holding it on 
a stick over a fire of fallen 
twigs, and for plates they 
would cut large chips from a 
tree with their axe. 

All day long they worked 
in the woods, measuring the 
land with a long chain. At 
night they would roll them- 
selves in their blankets and 
go to sleep under the trees. 
If the weather was cold they 
gathered wood and made a 
fire. Very likely they enjoyed 
it all, for boys are fond of 
adventure. Sometimes a 
party of Indians would come 
up and be very curious to know what these white boys were 
doing. But the Indians were peaceful then, and did not try 
to harm them. One party amused the young surveyors by 
dancing a war dance before them. A fine time they had in 
the woods, where they stayed alone for months. When they 
came back the land-holder was much pleased with their work. 

Now let us go on for five years, when the backwoods 
boy-surveyor had become a young man twenty-one years of 




MARY BALL— AFTERWARDS 
MOTHER OF GEORGE WASHINGTON 



94 A HERO OF THE COLONIES 

age. If we could take ourselves back to the year 1753, and 
plunge into the woods of western Pennsylvania, we might see 
this young man again in the deep forest, walking along with 
his rifle in hand and his pack on his back. He had with him 
an old frontiersman named Gill, and an Indian who acted as 
their guide through the forest. 

The Indian was a treacherous fellow. One day, when 
they were not looking, he fired his gun at them from behind a 
tree. He did not hit either of them. Some men would have 
shot him, but they did not ; they let him go 
Escape away and walked on alone through the deep 

woods. They built a fire that night, but they 
did not sleep before it, for they were afraid the Indian miight 
come back and try to kill them while they were sleeping. So 
they left it burning and walked on a few miles and went to 
sleep without a fire. 

A few days after that they came to the banks of a wide 
river. You may find it on your map of Pennsylvania. It is 
called the Alleghany River, and runs into the Ohio. It had 
been frozen, for it was winter time ; but now the ice was 
broken and floating swiftly down the stream. 

What were they to do ? They had to get across that 
stream. The only plan they could think of was to build a 
raft out of logs and try to push it through the ice with long 
poles. This they did, and were soon out on the wild river 
and among the floating ice. 

It was a terrible passage. The great cakes of ice came 
swirling along and striking like heavy hammers against the 
raft, almost hard enough to knock it to pieces. One of these 
heavy ice cakes struck the pole of the young traveller, and 
gave him such a shock that he fell from the raft into the freez- 
ing cold water. He had a hard enough scramble to get back 
on the raft again. 



A HERO OF THE COLONIES 



95 



After a while they reached a little island in the stream 
and got ashore. There was no wood on it and they could 
not make a fire, so they had to walk about all night to keep 
from freezing. The young man was wet to the skin, but he 
had young blood and did not suffer as much as the older man 
with him. When morning came they found that the ice was 
frozen fast between 
the island and the 
other shore, so all 
they had to do was 
to walk across it. 

These were 




FANEUIL HALL, BOSTON, "THE CRADLE OF LIBERTY" 

not the only adventures they had, but they got safe back to 
Virginia, from which they had set out months before. 

Do you want to know who this young traveller was ? 
His name was George Washington. That is all I need say. 
Any one who does not know who George Washington was is 
not much of an American. But quite likely you do not guess 
what he was doing in the woods so far away from his home. 



96 A HERO Of THE COLONIES 

He had been sent there by the governor of Virginia, and I 
shall have to tell you why. 

But first you must go back with me to an earlier time. 
The time I mean is when the French were settling in Canada 
along the St. Lawrence River, and going west over the lakes, 
and floating in canoes down the Mississippi River to the Gulf 
of Mexico, Wherever they went they built forts and claimed 
the country for their king. At the same time the English 
were settling along the Atlantic shores and pushing slowly 
back into the country. 

You should know that the French and the English were 
not the best of friends. They had their wars in Europe, and 
every time they got into war there they began to fight in 
America also. This made terrible times in the new country. 
The French had many of the Indians on their side, and they 
marched through the woods and attacked some 
Warfare ^^ ^^^ English towns, and the cruel Indians 

murdered many of the poor settlers who had 
done them no harm. There were three such wars, lasting for 
many years, and a great many innocent men, women and 
children, who had nothing to do with the wars in Europe, lost 
their lives. That is what we call war. It is bad enough 
now, but it was worse still in those days. 

The greatest of all the wars between the French and the 
English was still to come. Between the French forts on the 
Mississippi and the English settlements on the Atlantic there 
was a vast forest land, and both the French and the English 
said it belonged to them. In fact, it did not belong to either of 
them, but to the Indians ; but the white men never troubled 
themselves about the rights of the old owners of the land. 

While the English were talking the French were acting. 
About 1750 they built two or three forts in the country south 
of Lake Erie. What they wanted was the Ohio River, with 



A HERO OF THE COLONIES 97 

the rich and fertile lands which lay along that stream. Build- 
ing those forts was the first step. The next step would be to 
send soldiers to the Ohio and build forts there also. 

When the English heard what the French were doing 
they became much alarmed. If ' they did not do something 
very quickly they would lose all this great western country. 
The governor of Virginia wished to know what the French 
meant to do, and he thought the best way to find out was to 
ask them. So he picked out the young backwoods surveyor, 
George Washington, and sent him through the great forest to 
the French forts. 

Washington was very young for so important a duty. 
But he was tall and strong and quick-witted, and he was not 
afraid of any man or anything^. And he knew 

IT • 1 1 (^1 A Young Scout 

all about life m the woods. So he was chosen, 
and far west he went over plain and mountain, now on horse- 
back and now on foot, following the Indian trails through the 
forest, until at last he came to the French forts. 

The French officers told him that they had come there to 
stay. They were not going to give up their forts to please 
the governor of Virginia. And Washington's quick eyes saw 
that they were getting canoes ready to go down the streams 
to the Ohio River the next spring. This w^as the news the 
young messenger was taking back to the governor when he 
had his adventures with the Indian and the ice. 

If any of you know anything about how wars are brought 
on, you may well think there was soon going to be war in 
America. Both parties wanted the land, and both were 
ready to fight to get it, and when people feel that way fighting 
is not far ofT. 

Indeed, the spring of 1754 was not far advanced before 
both sides were on the move. Washington had picked out a 
beautiful spot for a fort. This was where the two rivers which 



98 A HERO OF THE COLONIES 

form the Ohio come together. On that spot the city of Pitts- 
burg now stands ; but then it was a very wild place. 

As soon as the governor heard Washington's report he 
sent a party of men in great haste to build a fort at that point. 
But in a short time a larger party of French came down the 
Allegheny River in canoes and drove the English workmen 
away. Then they finished the fort for themselves and called 
it Fort Duquesne. 

Meanwhile Washington was on his way back. A force 

of four hundred Virginians had been sent out under an officer 

named Colonel Frye. But the Colonel died on the march, 

and young Washington, then only twenty-two years old, 

found himself at the head of a res'iment of sol- 
Fort Duquesne , , 
diers, and about to start a great war. Was it 

not a difficult position for so young a man? Not many men 
of that age would have known what to do, but George Wash- 
ington was not an ordinary man. 

While the Virginians were marching west, the French 
were marching south, and it was not long before they came 
together. A party of French hid in a thicket to watch the 
English, and Washington, thinking they were there for no 
good, ordered his men to fire. They did so, and the leader 
of the French was killed. This was the first shot in the 
coming war. 

But the youthful commander soon found that the French 
were too strong for him. He built a sort of fort at a place 
called Great Meadows, and named it Fort Necessity. It was 
hardly finished before the French and Indians came swarming 
all around it and a severe fight began. 

The Virginians fought well, but the French were too 
strong, and fired into the fort till Washington had to sur- 
render. This took place on July 4, 1754, just twenty-two 
years before the American Declaration of Independence. 



A HERO OF THE COLONIES 



99 



Washington and his men were allowed to march home with 
their arms, and the young colonel was very much praised 
when he got home, for ever}^body thought he had done his 
work in a ver)^ good way. 

When the news of this battle crossed the ocean there was 
great excitement in England and France, and both countries 
sent soldiers to America. Those from England were under a 
general named Braddock, a man who 

\' 




BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT 



kne\\' all about fight- 
ing in England, but ^^' 
knew nothing about -^* ^< v 
fighting in America. " 

And what was worse, 



he would let nobody 
tell him. Washing- 
ton generously tried to do so, 
but he got pointedly snubbed by the 
proud British general for his pains. 

After a while away marched General Braddock, with his 
British soldiers in their fine red coats. Washington went with 
him with a body of Virginians dressed in plain colony clothes. 
On and on they went, through the woods and over the moun- 
tains, cutting down trees and opening a road for their wagons, 
and bravely beating their drums and waving their flags. At 
length they came near Fort Duquesne, the drums still beat- 
'^ L.oFC. 



loo A HERO OF THE COLONIES 

ing, the flags still flying, the gun barrels glittering in the 
bright sunshine. 

" Let me go ahead with my Virginians," said Washing- 
ton. "They know all about Indian fighting." 

"That for your Indians !" said Braddock, snapping his 
fingers. " They will not stay in their hiding places long when 
my men come up." 

Soon after they came into a narrow place, with steep 
banks and thick bushes all around. And suddenly loud Indian 
war-whoops and the crack of guns came from those bushes. 
Not a man could be seen, but bullets flew like hail-stones 
among the red-coats. The soldiers fired back, 
Defeat ^^^ ^^^X wasted their bullets on the bushes. 

Washington and his men ran into the woods 
and got behind trees like the Indians, but Braddock would 
not let his men do the same, and they were shot down like 
sheep. At length General Braddock fell wounded, and then 
his brave red-coats turned and ran for their lives. Very likel) 
not a man of them would have got away if Washington and 
his men had not kept back the French and Indians. 

This defeat was a bad business for the poor settlers, for 
the savage redskins began murdering them on all sides, and 
during all the rest of the war Washington was kept busy 
fighting with these Indians. Not till four years afterwards 
was he able to take Fort Duquesne from the French. 




CHAPTER X 

The French and Indian War and the 
Story of the Acadians 

AVE any of my young readers read the beautiful 
poem of " Evangeline," written by the poet 
Longfellow ? Very likely it is too old for you, 
though the time will come when you will read 
it and enjoy it very much. Evangeline was a 
pretty and pious woman who lived in a French settlement 
called Acadia, on the Atlantic coast. You will not find this 
name on any of your maps, but must look for Nova Scotia, 
by which name Acadia is now known. The story of Evange- 
line tells us about the cruel way in which the poor Acadians 
were treated by the English. It is a sad and pathetic story, 
as you will see when you have read it. 

It was one of the wicked results of the war between the 
French and the English. There were many cruel deeds in 
this war, and the people who -suffered the most were those 
who had the least to do with the fighting. In one place a 
quiet, happy family of father, mother and chil- 

1 1 • • 1 1 r J i- J The Wickedness 

dren, livmg on a lonely farm, and not dream- ^^ ^ 
ing of any danger, suddenly hear the wild 
war-whoop of the Indians, and soon see their doors broken 
open and their houses blazing, and are carried off into cruel 
captivity — those who are not killed on the spot. In another 
place all the people of a village are driven from their com- 
fortable homes by soldiers and forced to wander and beg 

lOI 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 



their bread in distant lands. And all this takes place be- 
cause the kings of England and France, three thousand 
miles away, are quarrelling about some lands which do not 
belong to either of them. If those w^ho brought on wars had 
to suffer for them they would soon come to an end. But they 
revel and feast in their splendid palaces while poor and inno- 
cent people do the suffering. The war that began in the 
wilds of western Pennsylvania, between 
the French and Indians and the . ^^^^M^^ .€ 




FIRST SHOT IN FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

The Colonial Troops were led by George Washington who is said to have 

Fired the First Shot 

English lasted seven years, from 1754 to 1761. During that 
time there were many terrible battles, and thousands of soldiers 
were killed, and there was much suffering and slaughter 
among the people, and burning of houses, and destruction of 
property, and horrors of all sorts. 

It is called the French and Indian War, because there 
were manv Indians on the side of the French. There were 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 103 

some on the side of the English, also. Indians are very 
savage and cruel in their way of fighting, as you already know. 
I shall have to tell you one instance of their love of blood- 
shed. One of the English forts, called Fort William Henry, 
which stood at the southern end of Lake George, had to sur- 
render to the French, and its soldiers were obliged to march 
out and give up their guns. 

There were a great many Indians with the French, and 
while the prisoners stood outside the fort, without a gun 
in their hands, the savage men attacked them and began to 
kill them with knives and tomahawks. The 
French had promised to protect them, but they ^^^^ ^^^ 
stood by and did nothing to stop this terrible 
slaughter, and many of the helpless soldiers were murdered. 
Others were carried off by the Indians as prisoners. It was 
the most dreadful event of the whole cruel war. 

I must now ask you to look on a map of the state of 
New York, if you have any. There you will see that the 
Hudson River runs up north from the city of New York, past 
Albany, the capital of the state, and ends in a region of 
mountains. Near its upper waters is a long, narrow lake 
named Lake George, which is full of beautiful islands. North 
of that is a much larger lake named Lake Champlain, which 
reaches up nearly to Canada. 

The British had forts on the Hudson River and Lake 
George and the French on Lake Champlain, and also between 
the two lakes, where stood the strong Fort Ticonderoga. It 
was around these forts and along these lakes that most of the 
fighting took place. For a long time the French had the best 
of it. The British lost many battles and were driven back. 
But they had the most soldiers, and in the end they began to 
defeat the French and drive them back, and Canada became 
the seat of war. But let me tell you the stor}^ of the Acadians. 



I04 THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

Acadia Avas a country which had been settled by the 
French a long, long time before, away back in 1604, before 
there was an English settlement in America. Captain John 
Smith, you know, came in 1607, three years afterwards. It 
was a very fertile country, and the settlers planted fields of 
grain and orchards of apples and other fruits, and lived a 
very happy life, with neat houses and plenty of good food, 
and in time the whole country became a rich farming land. 

But the British would not let these happy farmers alone. 
Every time there was trouble with the French, soldiers were 
sent to Acadia. It was captured by the British in 1690, but 
was given back to France in 1697, when that 
of Acadia"^ ^^^^ ended. It was taken again by the British 

in the war that began in 1702, and this time it 
was not given back. Even its pretty name of Acadia was 
taken away, and it was called Nova Scotia, which is not 
nearly so pretty a name. 

Thus it was that, when the new war with France began, 
Acadia was held as a province of Great Britain. To be sure 
the most of its people were descended from the old French 
settlers and did not like their British masters, but they could 
not help themselves, and went on farming in their old fashion. 
They were ignorant, simple-minded countrymen, who looked 
upon France as their country, and were not willing to be 
British subjects. 

That is the way with the French. It is the same to-day 
in Canada, which has b-een a colony of Great Britain for 
nearly a century and a half The descendants of the former 
French still speak their old language and love their old coun- 
try, and now fight the British with their votes as they once 
did with their swords. 

The British did not hold the whole of Acadia. The 
country now ^called New Brunswick, which lies north of Nova 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 



105 



Scotia, was part of it, and was still held by the French. In 
1755 the British government decided to attempt the capture 
of this country, and sent out soldiers for that purpose. 
Fighting began, but the French defended themselves bravely, 
and the British found they had a hard task to perform. 

What made it worse for them was that some of the 
Acadians, Avho did not want to see the British succeed, acted 




COURTSHIP AMONG THE INDIANS 



as spies upon them, and told the French soldiers about their 
movements, so that the French were everywhere ready for 
them. And the Acadians helped the French in other ways, 
and gave the British a great deal of trouble. 

This may have been wrong, but it was natural. Every 
one feels like helping his friends against his enemies. But 
you may be sure that it made the British very angry, and in 



io6 THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 

the end they took a cruel resolution. This was to send all 
the Acadians away from their native land to far-off, foreign 
countries. It was not easy to tell who were acting as spies, 
so the English government ordered them all to be removed. 
They w^ere told they might stay if they would swear to be 
true subjects of the king of England, but this the most of 
them would not do, for they were French at heart, and looked 
on King Louis of France as their true and rightful ruler. 

Was not this very cruel ? There were hundreds of boys 
and girls like yourselves among these poor Acadians, who 
had happy homes, and loved to work and play in their pretty 
gardens and green fields, and whose fathers and mothers did 
no harm to any one. But because a few busy 
*!. ^ <z ^T^' ^ ^ nien gave news to the French, all of these were 

the Soldiers ^ ' 

to be torn from their comfortable homes and 
sent far away to wander in strange lands, where many of them 
would have to beg for bread. It was a heartless act, and the 
world has ever since said so, and among all the cruel things 
the British have done, the removal of the Acadians from their 
homes is looked upon as one of the worst. 

When soldiers are sent to do a cruel thing they are very 
apt to do it in the most brutal fashion. The Acadians did 
not know what was to be done. It was kept secret "for fear 
they might run away and hide. A large number of soldiers 
were sent out, and they spread like a net over a wide stretch 
of country. Then they marched together and drove the 
people before them. The poor farmers might be at their 
dinners or working in their fields, but they were told that 
they must stop everything and leave their homes at once, for 
they were to be sent out of the country. Just think of it ! 
What a grief and terror they must have been in ! 

They were hardly given time to gather the few things 
they could carry with them, and on all sides they were driven 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 107 

like so many sheep to the seaside town of Annapolis, to which 

ships had been brought to carry them away. More than six 

thousand of these unhappy people, old and young, men, women 

and little ones, were gathered there ; many of them weeping 

bitterly, many more with looks of despair on their faces, all 

of them sad at heart and very likely wishing they were dead. 

Around them were soldiers to keep them from running 

away. They were made to get on the ships in such haste that 

families were often separated, husband and wife, or children 

and their mothers, being put on different ships and sent to 

different places. And for fear that some of them might 

come back again their houses were burned and 

their farms laid waste. Many of them went to f'*™*"®* 

Separated 

the French settlements in Louisiana, and others 
to other parts of America. Poor exiles ! they were scattered 
widely over the earth. Some of them in time came back to 
their loved Acadia, but the most of them never saw it again. 
It was this dreadful act about which Longfellow wrote in his 
poem of Evangeline. 

Now I must tell you how the French and Indian War 
ended. The French had two important cities in Canada, 
Montreal and Quebec. Quebec was built on a high and steep 
hill and was surrounded by strong walls, behind which were 
more than eight thousand soldiers. It was not an easy city 
to capture. 

A large British fleet was sent against it, and also an 
army of eight thousand men, under General Wolfe. For two 
or three months they fired at the city from the river below, 
but the French scorned them from their steep hill-top. At 
length General Wolfe was told of a narrow path by which 
he might climb the hill. One dark night he tried it, and by 
daybreak a large body of men had reached the hill-top, and 
had dragged up a number of cannon with them. 



io8 



THE FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR 



When the French saw this they were frightened. They 
hurried out of the city, thinking they could drive the EngHsh 
over the precipice before any more of them got up. They 
were mistaken in this. The EngHsh met them boldly, and in 
the battle that followed they gained the victory and Quebec 
fell into their hands. 

General Wolfe was mortally wounded, but when he was 
told that the French were in flight, he said : "God be praised I 
I die happy." 

Montcalm, the French general, also fell wounded. When 
he knew that he must die he said ; "So much the better ; I 
shall not live to see the surrender of Quebec." 

The next year Montreal was taken, and the war ended. 
And in the treaty of peace France gave up all her colonies in 
America. England got Canada and Spain got Louisiana. All 
North America now belonged to two nations, England and 
Spain. 





CHAPTER XI 



The Causes of the Revolution 




SHOULD be glad to have some of you take a 
steamboat ride up the broad Hudson River, 
past the city of New York, and onward in the 
track of the " Half Moon," Henry Hudson's 
ship. If you did so, you would come in time 
to the point where this ship stopped and turned back. Here, 
where Hudson and his Dutch sailors saw only a great spread 
of forest trees, stretching far back from the river bank, our 
modern travelers would see the large and handsome city of 
Albany, the capital of the State of New York. 

This is one of the hundreds of fine cities which have 
grown up in our country since Henry Hudson's time. A 
hundred and fifty years ago it Av^as a small place, 
not much larger than many of our villages. Y!u ^'^^ "* 
But even then it was of importance, for in it was 
taken the first step towards our great Union of States. I shall 
have to tell you what this step was, for you \vill certainl)- 
want to knoA\'. 

IOC 



iro 



THE CAC7SES OF THE REVOLUTION 



Well, 
speak of 
such thing 
Union, 
teen colo- 
from New 
down to 
each of 




at the time I 
there was no 
as an American 
There were thir- 
ties, reaching 
H a m p s hire 
^'^eorgia. But 



"¥., 



**•* ** 



«* ; *jt 



^' 



these 
was like 
a little na- 
tion of its 

own; each had ""-^ '- 
Its own government, 
made its own laws,' and 

fought its own fights. H.H KHA.KM. MOU....O C, 

A nis was well enough in father s shop 

one way, but ,t wa.s not so well i,. another. At one tin. the 





NDLES IN HIS 



THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION in 

people had the Indians to fight with, at another time the 
French, and sometimes both of these together, and many of 
them thought that they could do their fighting better if they 
were united into one country. 

So in the year 1754 the colonies sent some of their best 
men to Albany, to talk over this matter, and see if a union of 
the colonies could not be made. This is what I meant when 
I said that the first step towards the American Union was 
taken at Albam'. 

Of these men. there is only one I shall say anything 
about. This man's name you should know and remember; 
for he was one of the noblest and wisest men that ever lived 
in this country. His name was Benjamin 
Franklin. Forty years before this time he was t r^'^!/"** 

, . , -^ Noble Man 

a little Boston boy at work in his father's shop, 
helping him make candles. Afterwards he learned how to 
print, and then, in 1723, he went to Philadelphia, where he soon 
had a shop and a newspaper office, and in time became rich. 

There was nothing going on that Franklin did not take 
part in. In his shop he bound books, he made ink, he sold 
rags, soap, and coffee. He was not ashamed of honest work, 
and would take off his coat and wheel his papers along the 
street in a wheelbarrow. He started many institutions in 
Philadelphia which are now very important. Among these 
there are a great university, a large hospital, and a fine library. 
No doubt you have read how he brought down the lightning 
from the clouds along the string of a kite, and proved that 
lightning is the same thing as electricity. And he took an 
active part in all the political movements of the time. That 
is why he came to be sent to Albany in 1754, as a member 
of the Albany Convention. 

Franklin always did things in ways that set people to 
thinking. When he .vent to Albany he took with him copies 



112 THE CAUSES OE THE REVOLUTION 

of a queer picture which he had printed in his newspaper. 
This was a snake cut into thirteen pieces. Under each piece 
was the first letter of the name of a colony, such as '' P" for 
Pennsylvania. Beneath the whole were the words "Unite 
or die." 

That was like Franklin ; he was always doing something 
odd. The cut-up snake stood for the thirteen divided colonies. 
What Franklin meant was that they could not exist alone. A 
snake is not of much account when it is chopped up into bits, 
but it is a dangerous creature when it is whole. 
n ngina ^^^ proposed that there should be a grand 

council of all the colonies, a sort of Congress, 
meeting every year in Philadelphia, which was the most 
central large city. Over them all was to be a governor- 
general appointed by the king. This council could make 
laws, lay taxes, and perform other important duties. 

That is enough to say about Franklin's plan, for it was 
not accepted. It was passed by the convention, it is true, but 
the king would not have it and the colonies did not want it ; 
so the snake still lay stretched out along the Atlantic in thir- 
teen pieces. Then came the great war with the French of 
which I have told you. After that was over, things came to 
pass which in the end forced the colonies to combine. Thus 
Franklin's plan, or something like it, was in time carried out, 
but for many years the country was in a terrible state. This 
is what I am now^ going to tell you about. 

You should know that the war with the French cost the 
king and the colonies a great deal of money. The king of 
England at that time was named George. He was an obsti- 
nate man, but not a very wise one, as you will think when 
you have learned more about him. One thing he wanted to do 
was to send soldiers to America to keep the French from 
getting back what they had lost, and he asked the people to 



THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 



pay these soldiers. He also asked them to send him money 
to pay the governors and judges whom he had chosen to rule 
over them. But the people thought they could take care of 
themselves, and did not want British soldiers. And they 
preferred to pay the governors and judges themselves as they 
had always done, and did not want King George to do it 
for them. So they would 
not send him the money 
he asked for. 

Some of you may 
think this was very mean 
in the Americans, after 
all the British had done 
to help them in their war 
with the French. But 
they knew very well what 
they were about. They 
thought that if they gave 
the king a dollar to-day 
he might want five dollars 
to-morrow, and ten dol- 
lars the next day They 
judged it best not to be- 
gin with the dollar. 
Kings, you should know, d 
do not always make the f°»^*wed 
best use of money that is given them by their people. 

And that was not all. The people in the colonies did 
not like the way they had been treated by the English. They 
had mountains full of iron, but the king would not let them 
make this iron into tools. They had plenty of wool, but he 
would not let them weave it into cloth. They must buy these 
and other things in England, and must keep at farming ; but 




THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, BOSTON 

An immense assemblage gathered here on the evening of 
ecember i6, 1773, and stirring addresses were made by 
Josiah Quincy and Samuel Adams. The " Boston Tea Party" 



114 THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 

they were not allowed to send their grain to England, but 
had to eat it all at home. They could not even send goods 
from one colony to another. Thus they were to be kept poor 
that the English merchants and manufacturers might grow rich. 

These were some of the things the American people had 
to complain of There were still other things, and a good 
many of the Americans had very little love for the English 
king and people. They felt that they were in a sort of 
slavery, and almost as if they had ropes on their hands and 
chains on their feet. 

When King George w^as told that the Americans would 
not send him money he was very angry. I am afraid he 
called them bad names. They were a low, ignorant, ungrate- 
ful set, he said, and he would show them who 
Di"^ie ^**d^^ ^^^ their master. He would tax them and get 
money from them in that way. So the English 
Parliament, which is a body of lawmakers like our Congress, 
came together and passed laws to tax the Americans. 

The first tax they laid is what is called a stamp tax. I 
fancy you know very well what that is, for we have a stamp 
tax in this country to-day. Everybody who writes a bank 
check, or makes any legal paper, or sends away an express 
package, has to buy a stamp from the government and put it on 
the paper, and stamps have to be used on many other things. 

But there is this difference. Our people are quite willing 
to buy these stamps, but they were not willing to buy the 
stamps which the British government sent them in 1765. 
Why ? Well, they had a good reason for it, and this was 
that they had nothing to do with making the law^ The Eng- 
lish would not pay any taxes except those made by the people 
whom they elected to Parliament, and the Americans said 
they had the same right. They were not allowed to send any 
members to Parliament, so they said that Parliament had no 



THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 



115 



right to tax them. Their own legislatures might vote to send 
the king money, but the English Parliament had no right to 
vote for them. 

When the king found that the Americans would not use 
his stamps he tried another plan. He laid a tax on tea and 
some other goods. He thought that our people could not do 
without tea, so he 
sent several ship- 
loads across the 
ocean, expecting 
them to buy it and 
pay the tax. But 
he soon found that 
the colonists had 
no more use for 
taxed tea than for 
stamps. They would 
not even let the cap- 
tains bring their tea 
on shore, except at 
Charleston, and 
there it was packed 
in damp cellars, 
where it soon 
rotted. A ship sent 
to Annapolis was 
set on fire and burned to the water's edge with the tea in it. 

But the most stirring event took place at Boston. There 
one night, while the tea-ship lay at a wharf in the harbor, 
a number of young men dressed like Indians rushed on board 
with a loud war-whoop and began to break open the tea- 
chests with their hatchets and pour the tea into the harbor. 
This was the famous •' Boston tea-party." 




NOMINATION OF WASHINGTON AS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 
OF THE CONTINENTAL ARMY 



ii6 THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION' 

Americans liked tea, but not tea with an English tax on 
it. They boiled leaves and roots and made some sort of tea 
out of them. It was poor stuff, but it did not pay any tax. 
And they would not buy any cloth or other goods brought 
from England. If the king was angry and stubborn they 
were angry and stubborn, too, and every day they grew more 
angry, until many of them began to think that they would be 
better off without a king. They were not the kind of people 
to be made slaves of easily by King George or any other king. 

When the king heard of the " Boston tea-party" he was 
in a fury. He would make Boston pay well for its tea, he 
said. So he sent soldiers there, and he gave orders that no 
ships should go into or out of Boston harbor. 
T =p rt " This stopped most of the business of the town, 

and soon the poor people had no work to do 
and very little to eat. But they had crowded meetings at 
Faneuil Hall, where Samuel Adams and John Hancock and 
other patriots talked to them of their rights and wrongs. It 
began to look as if war would soon come. 

The time had come at last for a union of the colonies. 
What Franklin had failed to do at Albany in 1754 was done 
at Philadelphia in 1774. A meeting was held there which 
was called a Congress, and was made up of some of the best 
men of the country sent from the colonies. One of these 
was George Washington, who had lived on his farm at Mt. 
Vernon since the end of the French War. 

Congress sent a letter to the king, asking him to give the 
people of this country the same rights that the people of England 
had. There was no harm in this, I am sure, but it made the 
king more obstinate still. I have said he was not a wise man. 
Most people say he was a very foolish one, or he would have 
known that the people of the colonies would fight for their 
rights if they could not get them in peace. 



THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 117 

All around Boston the farmers and villagers began to 
collect guns and powder and to drill men into soldiers. These 
were called " minute men," which meant that they would be 
ready to fight at a minute's notice, if they were asked to. 
When people begin to get ready in this way, war is usually 
not far off. 

One night at Boston a man named Paul Revere stood 
watching a distant steeple till he saw a light suddenly flash 
out through the darkness. Then he leaped on 
his horse and rode at full speed away. That pf" 
light was a signal telling him that British sol- 
diers were on the march to Concord twenty miles away, to 
destroy some military stores which had been gathered there. 

Away rode Revere through the night, rousing up the 
people and shouting to them that the British soldiers were 
coming. He was far ahead of the soldiers, so that when they 
reached the village of Lexington, ten miles from Boston, the 
people were wide awake, and a party of minute men was 
drawn up on the village green. The soldiers were ordered to 
fire on these men^ and some of them fell dead. Those were 
the first shots in a great war. It was the 19th of April, 1775. 

The British marched on to Concord, but the farmers had 
carried away most of the stores and buried them in the woods. 
Then the red-coats started back, and a terrible march they had 
of it. For all along the road were farmers with guns in their 
hands, firing on the troops from behind trees and stone walls. 
Some of the soldiers got back to Boston, but many of them 
lay dead in the road. The poor fellows killed at Lexington 
were terribly avenged. 

Far and wide spread the news, and on all sides the 
farmers left their plows and took down their rifles, and 
thousands of them set out along the roads to Boston. Soon 
there were twenty thousand armed men around the town, and 



118 THE CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION 

the British were shut up like rats in a trap. The American 
people were in rebellion against the king and war had begun. 

It was to be a long and dreadful war, but it led to 
American liberty, and that was a thing well worth fighting 
for. While the people were laying siege to Boston, Congress 
was in session at Philadelphia, talking about 
Commander' what had best be done One good thing they 
did was to make George Washington com- 
mander-in-chief of the army and send him to Boston to fight 
the British there. They could not have found a better soldier 
in all America. 

The next good thing took place a year later. This was 
the thing which you celebrate with fireworks every 4th of July. 
Congress decided that this country ought to be free, and no 
longer to be under the rule of an English king. So a paper 
was written by a member from Virginia named Thomas Jef- 
ferson, with the help of Benjamin Franklin and some others. 
The paper is known by the long name of " Declaration of 
Independence." It declared that the American colonies were 
free from British rule, and in future would take care of them- 
selves. It was on the 4th of July, 1776, that this great paper 
was adopted by Congress, and on that day the Republic of the 
United States of America was born. That is why our people 
have such a glad and noisy time every 4th of July. 

Everywhere the people were full of joy when they heard 
what had been done. In the State House at Philadelphia 
rang out the great bell on which were the words, "Proclaim 
liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof" 
In New York the statue of King George was pulled down 
and thrown into the dust of the street. The people did not 
know what dark days lay before them, but they were ready to 
suffer much for the sake of liberty, and to risk all they -had, 
life and all, for the freedom of their native land. 




THE CAP-^^^^.E OF MAvJOR ANDRE-. 



CHAPTER XII 



Fighting for Freedom 




NY of my readers who are true, sound-hearted 
Americans, and I am sure all of them are that, 
would have been glad to see how the New Eng- 
land farmers swarmed around Boston in April, 
1775. Some of them had fought in the French 
war, and brought with them their rusty old muskets, which 
they knew very well how to use. And most of them were 
hunters and had learned how to shoot. And all of them 
were bold and brave and were determined to have a free 
country. The English red-coat soldiers in Boston would 
soon find that these countrymen were not men to be laughed 
at, even if they had not been trained in war. 

One morning the English woke up and rubbed their 
eyes hard, for there, on a hill that overlooked the town, was a 
crowd of Americans. They had been at work all night, dig- 
ging and making earthworks to fight behind, 
and now had quite a fort. The English offi- 
cers did not like the look of things, for the Americans could 
fire from that hill — Bunker Hill, they called it — straight down 
into the town. They must be driven away or they would 
drive the troops away. 

I can tell you that was a busy and a bloody day for 
Boston. The great war-ships in the harbor thundered with 
their cannon at the men on the hill. And the soldiers began 
to march up the hill, thinking that the Yankees would run 

119 



Bunker Hill 



I20 



FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 



like sheep when they saw the red-coats coming near. But 
the Yankees Avere not there to run. 

" Don't fire, boys, till you see the whites of their eyes," 
said brave General Prescott. 

So the Yankee boys waited till the British were close at 

hand. Then they fired 
and the red-coats fell 
in rows, for the farmers 
did not waste their 
bullets. Those that did 
not fall scampered in 
haste down the hill. It 
was a strange sight to 
see British soldiers 
running away from 
Yankee farmers. 

After awhile the 
British came again. 
They were not so sure 
this time. Again the 
Yankee muskets rattled 
along the earthworks, 
and again the British 
turned and ran — those 
who were able to. 

They could never 
have taken that hill if 
the farmer soldiers had 
not run out of powder. When the red-coats came a third 
time the Yankees could not fire, and had to fight them with 
the butts of their guns. So the British won the hill ; but they 
had found that the Yankee farmers were not cowards; after that 
time they never liked to march against American earthworks. 




PAUL REVERE'S RIDE 



FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 121 

Not long after the battle of Bunker Hill General Wash- 
ington came to command the Americans, and he spent months 
in drilling and making soldiers out of them. He also got a 
good supply of powder and muskets and some cannon, and 
one dark night in March, 1776, he built a fort on another hill 
that looked down on Boston. 

I warrant you, the British were scared when they looked 
up that hill the next morning and saw cannon on its top and 
men behind the cannon. They would have to climb that hill 
as they had done Bunker Hill, or else leave Boston. But 
they had no fancy for another Bunker Hill, so 
they decided to leave. They got on their ships ^^ Br^ish 
and sailed away, and Washington and his men 
marched joyfully into the town. That was a great day for 
America, and it was soon followed by the 4th of July and the 
glorious Declaration of Independence. Since that 4th of July 
no king has ever ruled over the United States. 

We call this war the American Revolution. Do you 
know what a revolution is ? It means the doing away with a 
bad government and replacing it with a better one. In this 
country it meant that our people were tired of the rule of 
England and wished to govern themselves. They had to fight 
hard for their freedom, it is true, but it was well worth fight- 
ing for. 

The war was a long and dreadful one. It went on for 
seven long years. At one time everything seemed lost ; 
at other times all grew bright and hopeful. And thus it went 
on, up and down, to the end. I cannot tell you all that took 
place, but I will give you the important points. 

After the British left Boston, they sailed about for a time, 
and then they came with a large army to New York. Wash- 
ington was there with his soldiers to meet them, and did his 
best, but everything seemed to go wrong. First, the Ameri- 



122 



FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 



cans were beaten in battle and had to march out of New York 
and let the British march in. Then Washington and his 
ragged men were obliged to hasten across the state of New 
Jersey with a strong British force after them. They were too 
weak to face the British. 

When they got to the Delaware River the Americans 
crossed it and took all the boats, so that the British could not 
follow them. It was now near winter time, and both armies 




WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE 



went into winter quarters. They faced each other, but the 
wide river ran between. 

You may well think that by this time the American 
people were getting very down-hearted. Many of them 
thought that all was lost, and that they would have to submit 
to King George. The army dwindled away and no new sol- 
diers came in, so that it looked as if it would go to pieces. It 
was growing very dark for American liberty. 

But there was one man who did not despair, and that man 
was George Washington. He saw that something must be 



FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 123 

done to stir up the spirits of the people, and he was just the 
man to do it. It was a wonderful Christmas he kept that 
year. All Christmas day his ragged and hungry soldiers were 
marching up their side of the Delaware, and crossing the river 
in boats, though the wind was biting cold, and the air was 
full of falling snow, and the broken ice was Washington 
floating in great blocks down the river ; but Crosses the 
nothing stopped the gallant soldiers. All Delaware 
Christmas night they marched down the other side of the 
river, though their shoes were so bad that the ground became 
reddened by blood from their feet. Two of the poor fellows 
were frozen to death. 

At Trenton, a number of miles below, there was a body 
of German soldiers. These had been hired by King George 
to help him fight his battles. That day they had been eating 
a good Christmas dinner while the hungry Americans were 
marching through the snow. At night they went to bed, not 
dreaming of danger. 

They were wakened in the morning by shots and shouts. 
Washington and his men were in the streets of the town. 
They had hardly time to seize their guns before the ragged 
Yankees were all around them and nearly all of them were 
made prisoners of war. 

Was not that a great and glorious deed ? It filled the 
Americans with new hope. In a few days afterwards, Wash- 
ington defeated the British in another battle, and then settled 
down with his ragged but brave men in the hills of New 
Jersey. He did not go behind a river this time. The British 
knew where he was and could come to see him if they wanted 
to. But they did not not come. Very likely they had seen 
enough of him for that winter. 

The next year things went wrong again for Washington. 
A large British army sailed from New York and landed at the 



124 FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 

head of Chesapeake Bay. Then they marched overland to 
Philadelphia. Washington fought a battle with them on 
Brandywine Creek, but his men were defeated and the British 
marched on and entered Philadelphia. They now held the 
largest cities of the country, Philadelphia and New York. 

While the British were living in plenty and having a 

very good time in the Quaker city, the poor Americans spent 

a wretched and terrible winter at a place called 

d'Vh' '" Valley Forge. The winter was a dismally cold 

one, and the men had not half enough food to 

eat or clothes to wear, and very poor huts to live in. They 

suffered dreadfully, and before the spring came many of them 

died from disease and exposure. 

Poor fellows ! they were paying dearly for their struggle 
for liberty. But there was no such despair this winter as there 
had been the winter before, for news came from the north that 
warmed the soldiers up like a fire. Though Washington had 
lost a battle, a great victory had been gained by the Ameri- 
cans at Saratoga, in the upper part of New York state. 

While General Howe was marching on Philadelphia, 
another British army, under General Burgoyne, had been 
marching south from Canada, along the line of Lake Cham- 
plain and Lake George. But Burgoyne and his men soon 
found themselves in a tight place. Food began to run short 
and a regiment of a thousand men was sent into Vermont to 
seize some stores. They were met by the Green Mountain 
boys, led by Colonel Stark, a brave old soldier. 

"There are the red-coats," said the bold colonel. "We 
must beat them to-day, or Betty Stark is a widow." 

Beat them they did. Only seventy men got back to 
Burgoyne. All the rest were killed or captured. 

Another force, under Colonel St. Leger, marched south 
from Oswego, on Lake Ontario. A large body of Indians was 



FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 



125 



with him. This army stopped to besiege a fort in the wilder- 
ness, and General Arnold marched to relieve the fort. 

The way Arnold defeated St. Leger was a very curious 
one. He sent a half-witted fellow into the Indian camp with 
the tale that a great American force was coming. The mes- 
senger came running in among the savages, with bullet-holes 
in his clothes. He 
seemed half scared 
to death, and told 
the Indians that a 
vast host was com- 
ing after him as thick 
as the leaves on the 
trees. 

This story fright- 
ened the Indians and 
they ran off in great 
haste through 
woods. When 
British soldiers 
this they fell 
such a panic 
they took to 
heels, leaving 
their tents and 



the 

the 

saw 

into 

that 

their 

all 



can- 




MEETING OF WASHINGTON AND ROCHAMBEAU 



non behind them. 
The people in the fort did not know what it meant, till Arnold 
came up and told them how he had won a victory without 
firing a shot, by a sort of fairy story. 

All this was very bad for Burgoyne. The Indians he 
Drought with him began to leave. At length he found him- 
self in a terrible plight. His provisions were nearly gone, he 
was surrounded by the Americans, and after fighting two 



126 FIGHTING FOR FREEDOM 

battles he retreated to Saratoga. Here he had to surrender. 
He and all his army became prisoners to the Americans. 

We cannot wonder that this warmed up the Americans 
like a fire. It filled the English with despair. They began 
to think that they would never win back the colonies. 

One thing the good news did was to get the French to 

come to the help of the Americans. Benjamin Franklin was 

then in Paris, and he asked the king to send 

France Helps i . , , . a • t-i 

America ships and men and money to America, ihe 

French had no love for the British, who had 
taken from them all their colonies in America, so they did as 
Franklin wished. 

There are two more things I wish to tell you in this 
chapter, one good and one bad. When the British in Phila- 
delphia heard that the French were coming to help the Ameri- 
cans, they were afraid they might be caught in a trap. So 
they left in great haste and marched for New York. Wash- 
ington followed and fought a battle with them, but they got 
away. After that Washington's army laid siege to New York, 
as it had formerly done to Boston. 

That was the good thing. The bad thing was this. 
General Benedict Arnold, who had defeated St. Leger and his 
Indians, and who was one of the bravest of the American offi- 
cers, turned traitor to his country. He had charge of West 
Point, a strong fort on the Hudson River, and tried to give 
this up to the British. But he was found out and had to flee 
for his life. Major Andre, a British officer, who had been sent 
to talk with Arnold, was caught by three American scouts on 
his way back to New York. They searched him for papers, 
and found what they wanted hidden in his boot. Poor Andre 
was hung for a spy, but the traitor Arnold escaped. But he 
was hated by the Americans and despised by the British, and 
twenty years afterwards he died in shame and remorse. 



\ 




CHAPTER XIII 

Paul Jones, the Naval Hero of the 

Revolution 

E are justly proud of our great war-ships, with 
their strong steel sides and their mighty guns, 
each of which can hurl a cannon-ball miles and 
miles away. And such balls ! Why, one of 
them is as heavy as a dozen of you tied together, 
and can bore a hole through a plate of solid steel as thick as 
your bodies. 

Such ships and such guns as these had not been dreamed 
of in the days of the Revolution. Then there were only small 
wooden vessels, moved by sails instead of steam, and a can- 
non-ball that weisrhed twenty-four pounds was 
thought very heavy. Six- and twelve-pound balls f^^^n ^^^^ 
were common. And to hit a ship a mile away ! 
It was not to be thought of. I tell you, in those days ships 
had to fight nearly side by side and men to fight face to face. 
To be a mile away was as good as being a hundred miles. 

But for all this there was some hard fighting done at sea 
in the Revolutionary War, in spite of the small ships and 
little guns. They fought closer together, that was all. Boast 
as we may about the wonderful work done by our ships at 
Santiago and Manila in the Spanish War, we have better right 
to be proud of the deeds of our great naval hero of the 
Revolutionary War, with his rotten old ship and poor little 
guns, but with his stout heart behind them_ all. 

127 



128 



THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 



This hero was the sturdy John Paul Jones, one of the 
boldest and bravest men that ever stood on a ship's deck. 
And his great sea fight has had nothing to surpass it in all 
the history of naval war. I cannot tell you the sXory of the 
Revolution without telling about the great ocean victory of 
the bold-hearted Paul Jones. 

Poor ships enough we had to fight with. A little fleet 
of seven or eight small vessels, whose heaviest guns threw 
only nine-pound balls, and the most of them only six-pound. 

You could have thrown these 
yourself with one hand, though 
not so far. These were all we 
had at first to fight more than 
seventy British ships, with guns 
that threw eighteen-pound 
balls, and some still heavier. 
Do you not think it looked like 
a one-sided fight ? 

But the Americans had 
one great advantage. They 
had not many merchant ships 
and not much to lose upon the 
seas. On the other hand, the 
ocean swarmed with the mer- 
chant ships of England, and with the store ships bringing 
supplies of guns and powder and food to the armies on 
shore. Here were splendid prizes for our gallant seamen, 
and out of every port sailed bold privateers, sweeping the 
seas and bringing in many a richly-laden craft. 

Some of the best fighting of the war was done by these 
privateers. While they were hunting for merchant ships they 
often came across war-ships, and you can be sure they did not 
always run away. No, indeed ; they were usually ready to 




PAUL JONES 



j 



THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 129 

fight, and during the war no less than sixteen war vessels 
were captured by our ocean rovers. On the other hand, the 
British privateers did not capture a single American war-ship. 
As for merchant vessels, our privateers brought them in by the 
dozens. One fleet of sixty vessels set out from Ireland for 
the West Indies, and out of these thirty-five were gobbled up 
by our privateers, and their rich stores brought into American 
ports. During the whole war the privateers took more than 
seven hundred prizes. I might go on to tell you of some of 
their hard fights, but I think you would rather read the story 
of Paul Jones, the boldest and bravest of them all, the terror 
of the seas to the British fleet. 

Paul Jones, you should know, was born in Scotland. 
But he made America his home. And as he was known to 
be a good sailor, he was appointed first lieutenant of the 
"Alfred," the flagship of our small fleet. He 
had the honor to be the first man to raise a flag- ^^"' *'^"^^' 

c5 Early Career 

on an American man-of-war, and that is some- 
thing to be proud of. This took place on the Delaware, at 
Philadelphia, about Christmas, 1775. 

It was an important ceremony, for the fleet was just being 
put in commission. At a given signal Lieutenant Jones 
grasped the halliards, and hauled up to the mizzen topmast a 
great flag of yellow silk. As it unfurled to the breeze cannon 
roared and crowds on the shore lustily cheered. In the centre 
of the flag was seen the figure of a green pine tree, and under 
this a rattlesnake lay coiled, with the warning motto, " Don't 
tread on me ! " 

This was the famous rattlesnake flag. Another flag was 
raised on which were thirteen stripes, alternately red and 
white, and in the corner the British union jack. We then had 
the stripes but not the stars. They were to come after the 
Declaration of Independence and the union of the states 



130 THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 

In August, 1776, Congress made Paul Jones captain of 
the brig '* Providence," and he soon showed what kind of a 
man he was. He came across a fleet of five vessels, and 
made up his mind to capture the largest of them, which he 
thought to be a fine merchant ship. He got pretty close up 
before he learned his mistake. It was the 
a™oLry''' 'British frigate "Solebay," strong enough to 
make mince-meat of his little brig. There was 
nothing for it but to run, and Captain Jones made haste to 
get away, followed by the *'Solebay." But the Briton gained 
on the American, and after a four-hours' run the frigate was 
less than a hundred yards away. It might at any minute sink 
the daring little "Providence" by a broadside. 

But Paul Jones was not the man to be caught. Sud- 
denly the helm of the brig was put hard up, as sailors say, 
and the little craft turned and dashed across the frigate's bow. 
As it did so the flag of the republic was spread to the breeze, 
and a broadside from the brig's guns swept the frigate's deck. 
Then, with all sail set, away dashed the " Providence " before 
the breeze. As soon as the British got back their senses they 
fired all their guns at the brig. But not a ball hit her, and 
with the best of the wind she soon left the " Solebay " far 
behind. 

And now I must tell the story of Paul Jones' greatest 
fight. In its way it was the greatest sea-fight ever seen. It 
was fought with a fleet in which Jones sailed from a French 
port, for Congress had found what a hero they had in their 
Scotch sailor, and now they made him commodore of a fleet. 

The flagship of this fleet was a rotten old log of a ship, 
which had sailed in the East India merchant service till its 
timbers were in a state of dry rot. It was a shapeless tub of 
a vessel, better fitted to lie in port and keep rabbits in than to 
send out as a battle-ship. Paul Jones named it the " Bon 



|l 



THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 131 

Homme. Richard," which, in English means "Poor Richard/' 

This was a name used by Benjamin FrankHn for his almanac. 

It was not until the summer of 1779 that Jones was able 

to set sail. His ship had thirty-six guns, such as they were, 

and he had with him three consorts under French officers— the 
"Alliance," the 

"Pallas," and the 

"Vengeance." 

Among his crew 

were a hundred 

American sail- 
ors, who had just 

been set free 

from English 

prisons. And his 

master's mate, 

Richard Dale, a 

man of his own 

sort, had just 
escaped from 
prison in Eng- 
land. 

Away they 
went, east and 
west, north and 
south, around 
the British isles, 

seeking for the British captain surrendering sword to pauljones 

men-of-war which should have swarmed in those^seas, but 
finding only merchant vessels, a number of which were' cap- 
tured and their crews kept as prisoners. But the gallant 
commodore soon got tired of this. He had come out to 
fight and he wanted to find something worth fighting. At 




132 THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 

length, on September 23d, he came in view of a large fleet of 
merchant ships, forty-two in all, under the charge of two 
frigates, the "Serapis," of forty-two guns, and the "Countess 
of Scarborough," of twenty-two smaller guns. 

Commodore Jones left the smaller vessel for his consorts 
to deal with, and dashed away. for the "Serapis" as fast as 
the tub-like "Bon Homme Richard" could go. The British 
ship was much stronger than his in number and weight of 
guns, but he cared very little for that. The "Serapis" had 
ten 18-pound cannon in each battery, and the 
*f * ^'V * ^ "Bon Homme Richard" only three. And 

"Serapis ^ 

these were such sorry excuses for cannon that 
two of them burst at the first fire, killing and wounding the 
most of their crews. After that Jones did all his fighting 
with 12 and 8-pound guns; that is, with guns which fired 
balls of these weights. 

It was night when the battle began. Soon the i8-pounders 
of the "Serapis" were playing havoc with the sides of the 
"Bon Homme Richard." Many of the balls went clear 
through her and plunged into the sea beyond. Some struck 
her below the water level, and soon the rotten old craft was 
"leaking like a basket." 

It began to look desperate for Jones and his ship. He 
could not half reply to the heavy fire of the English guns, and 
great chasms were made in the ship's side, where the 18-pound 
balls tore out the timbers between the port holes. 

Captain Pearson of the "Serapis" looked at his stagger- 
ing and leaking antagonist, and thought it about time for the 
battle to end. 

" Have you surrendered?" he shouted across the water 
to Commodore Jones. 

" I have not yet begun to fight," was the famous answer 
of the brave Paul Jones. 



THE NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 133 

Surrender, indeed ! I doubt if that word was in Paul 
Jones' dictionary. He would rather have let his vessel sink. 
The ships now drifted together, and by Jones' order the jib- 
boom of the " Serapis " was lashed to his mizzen-mast. This 
brought the ships so close side by side that the English gun- 
ners could not open their ports, and had to fire through them 
and blow them off And the gunners on both sides had to 
thrust the handles of their rammers through the enemy's port 
holes, in order to load their guns. 

Affairs were now desperate. The " Bon Homme Rich- 
ard " was on fire in several places. Water was pouring into 
her through a dozen rents. It seemed as if she must sink or 
burn. Almost any man except Paul Tones 

111 1 r \ T 1 ^ A Hot Fight 

would have given up the fight. 1 know I 

should, and I"iancy most of you would have done the same. 

But there was no give up in that man's soul. 

One would think that nothing could have been worse, 
but worse still was to come. In this crisis the "Alliance," 
one of Jones' small fleet, came up and fired two broadsides 
into the wounded flag-ship, killing a number of her crew. 
Whether this was done on purpose or by mistake is not 
known. The French captain did not like Commodore Jones, 
and most men think he played the traitor. 

And another bad thing took place. There were two or 
three hundred English prisoners on the ".Bon Homme 
Richard," taken from her prizes. One of the American 
officers, thinking that all was over, set these men free, and 
they came swarming up. At the same time one of the crew 
tried to haul down the flag and cried to the British for quarter. 
Paul Jones knocked him down by flinging a pistol at his head. 
He might sink or burn-^ — but give up the ship ? never! 

The tide of chance now began to turn. Richard Dale, 
the master's mate, told the English prisoners that the vessel 



134 ^-^^ NAVAL HERO OF THE REVOLUTION 

was sinking, and set them at work pumping and fighting the 
fire to save their lives. And one of the marines, who was 
fighting on the yard-arms, dropped a hand grenade into an 
open hatch of the "Serapis." It set fire to a heap of gun 
cartridges that lay below, and these exploded, killing twenty 
of the gunners and wounding many more, while the ship was 
set on fire. This ended the fight. The fire of 
How the Fight ^^^ marines from the mast-tops had cleared the 

Ended ^ 

decks of the "Serapis" of men. Commodore 
Jones aided in this with the 9-pounders on his deck, loading 
and firing them himself Captain Pearson stood alone, and 
when he heard the roar of the explosion he could bear the 
strain no longer. He ran and pulled down the flag, which 
had been nailed to the mast. 

" Cease firing," said Paul Jones. 

The "Serapis" was his. Well and nobly had it been won. 

Never had there been a victory gained in such straits. The 
"Bon Homme Richard" was fast settling down into the sea. 
Pump as they would, they could not save her. Inch by inch 
she sank deeper. Jones and his gallant crew boarded the 
"Serapis," and. at nine o'clock the next morning the noble 
old craft sank beneath the ocean waves, laden with honor, and 
with her victorious flag still flying. The "Serapis" was 
brought safely into port. 

Captain Pearson had fought bravely, and the British 
ministry made him a knight for his courage. 

" If I had a chance to fight him again I would make him 
a lord," said brave Paul Jones. 

Never before or since has a victory been won under 
such desperate circumstances as those of Paul Jones, with his 
sinking and burning ship, his bursting guns, his escaped pris- 
oners, and his treacherous consort. It was a victory to put 
his name forever on the annals of fame. 




PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1789 TO 1829 




DONT GIVE UP THE SHIP' 

Capt. Lawrence, War of 1812. 




CHAPTER XIV 

Marion, the Swamp Fox and General 

Greene 

AR away back in old English history there was a 
famous archer named Robin Hood, who lived in 
the deep woods with a bold band of outlaws 
like himself He and his band were foes of the 
nobles and friends of the poor, and his name 
will never be forgotten by the people of England. 

No doubt you have, read about the gallant archer. No 
man of his time could send an arrow so straight and sure as 
he. But we need not go back for hundreds of years to find our 
Robm Hood. We have had a man like him in 
our own country, who fought for us in the Revo- '^" ^""^^^^^^ 
lution. His name was Francis Marion, and he ^''^'" "'''''* 
was known as the " Swamp Fox "; for he lived in the swamps of 
South Carolina as'Robin Hood did in the forests of England, 
and he was the stinging foe of the oppressors of the people! 
I have already told you about the war in the North, and 
of how the British, after doing all they could to overthrow 
Washmgton and conquer the country, found themselves shut 
up in the city of New York, with Washington like a watch- 
dog outside. 

When the British generals found that the North was too 
hard a nut to crack, they thought they would try what they 
could do in the South. So they sent a fleet and an army 
down the coast, and before long they had taken the cities of 

135 



136 MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 

Savannah and Charleston, and had their soldiers marching- 
all over Georgia and South Carolina. General Gates, the man 
to whom Burgoyne surrendered, came down with a force of 
militia to fight them, but he was beaten so badly that he had to 
run away without a soldier r^^^ ==^^^^^^^^=z 
to follow him. You can =^ ~ "^"^^ 
imagine that the British '' 
were proud of their sue- N 
cess. They thought them- 4 




JACK DAVIS FOOLS THE BRITISH 



selves masters of the South, and fancied they had only to 
march north and become masters there, too. 

But you must not think that they were quite masters. 
Back in the woods and the swamps were men with arms in 
their hands and with patriotism in their hearts. They were 



MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 137 

like wasps or hornets, who kept darting out from their nests, 
stinging the British troops, and then darting back out of sight, 
These gallant bands were led by Marion, Sumter, Pickens, 
and other brave men ; but Marion's band was the most 
famous of them all, so I shall tell you about the Swamp Fox 
and what he did. 

I fancy all of my young friends would have laughed if 
they had seen Marion's band when it joined General Gates' 
army. Such scarecrows of soldiers they were ! 
There were only about twenty of them in all, o^^ed B 
some of them white and some black, some men 
and some boys, dressed in rags that fluttered in the wind, 
and on horses that looked as if they had been fed on corn- 
cobs instead of corn. 

Gates and his men did laugh at them, though they took 
care not to laugh when Marion was at hand. He was a 
small man, with a thin face, and dressed not much better than 
his men. But there was a look in his eye that told the sol- 
diers he was not a safe man to laugh at. 

Marion and his men were soon off again on a scout, and 
after Gates and his army had been beaten and scattered to the 
winds, they went, back to their hiding places in the swamps 
to play the hornet once more. 

Along the Pedee River these swamps extended for miles. 
There were islands of dry land far within, but they could only 
be reached by narrow paths which the British were not able 
to find. Only men who had spent their lives in that country 
could make their way safely through this broad stretch of 
water plants and water-soaked ground. 

Marion's force kept changing. Now it went down to 
twenty men, now up to a hundred or more. It was never 
large, for there was not food or shelter for many men. But 
there were enough of them to give the British plenty of 



138 MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 

trouble. They had their sentries on the outlook, and when a 
party of British or Tories went carelessly past out would 
spring Marion's men, send their foes flying like deer, and then 
back they would go before a strong body of the enemy could 
reach them. 

These brave fellows had many hiding places in the 
swamps and many paths out of them. To-day they might 
strike the British in one place and to-morrow in another many 
miles away. Small as their force was they gave the enemy 
.far more trouble than Gates had done with all 
H'd'*^" PI ces ^^^ army. Marion's headquarters was a tract 
of land known as Snow's Island, where a creek 
ran into the Pedee. It was high and dry, was covered with 
trees and thickets, and was full of game. And all around it 
spread the soaking swamp, with paths known only to the 
patriot band. Among all their hiding places, this was their 
chosen home. 

You may be sure that the British did their best to capture 
a man who gave them so much trouble as Marion. They sent 
Colonel Wemyss, one of their best cavalry officers, to hunt 
him down. Marion was then far from his hiding place and 
Wemyss got on his trail. But the Swamp Fox was hard to 
catch. He led the British a lively chase, and when they gave 
it up in despair he followed them back. He came upon a 
large body of Tories and struck them so suddenly that 
hardly a man of them escaped, while he lost only one man. 
Tories, you should know, were Americans who fought on the 
British side. 

The next man who tried to capture Marion was Colonel 
Tarleton, a hard rider and a good soldier, but a cruel and 
brutal man. He was hated in the South as much as Benedict 
Arnold was in the North. There is a good story told about 
how he was tricked by one of Marion's men. One day as he 



MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 139 



and his men were riding furiously along they came up to an 
old farmer, who was hoeing in his field beside the road. 

" Can you tell me what became of the man who galloped 
by here just ahead of us ? " asked one of them. " I will give 
you fifty pounds if you put me on his track." 

" Do you mean the man on a black horse with a white 
star in its forehead ? " asked the farmer. 

"Yes, that's the fellow." 

"He looked to me like Jack Davis, one of Marion's men, 
but he went past so fast that I could not be sure." 

" Never mind who he was. 
What we want to know is -^-=^^=^_ - "-^^^ 
where to find him." _^ ^ 

" Bless your heart ! he was 
going at such a pace that he 
couldn't well stop under four 
or five miles. I'm much afeard 
I can't earn that fifty pounds." 

On rode the troop, and 
back into the woods went the 
farmer. He had not gone far 
before he came to a black horse 
with a white star in its fore- 
head. This he mounted and rode away. 
Jack Davis himself 

That was the kind of men Tarleton had to deal with, and 
you may be sure that he did not catch any of them. He had 
his hunt, but he caught no game. 

While Marion was keeping the war alive in South Caro- 
lina, an army was gathering under General Greene, who was, 
next to Washington, the best of the American generals. 
With him were Daniel Morgan, a famous leader of riflemen. 
William Washington, a cousin of the commander-in-chief, and 




'I'PV 



V><>tf,^J 



MARTELLO TOWER WHERE 'WOLFE 
WAS KILLED 



The fantier was 



I40 MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 

Henry Lee, or " Light-horse Harry," father of the famous 
General Lee of the Civil War. 

General Greene got together about two thousand men, 
half armed and half supplied and knowing nothing about 
war, so that he had a poor chance of defeating the trained 
British soldiers. But he was a Marion on a larger scale, and 
knew when to retreat and when to advance. I must tell you 
what he did. 

In the first place Morgan the rifleman met the bold 
Colonel Tarleton and gave him a sound flogging. Tarleton 
hurried back to Lord Cornwailis, the British commander in 
the South. Cornwailis thought he would catch 
R'fi'^iTi"n ^ Morgan napping, but the lively rifleman was too 
wide-awake for him. He hurried back with 
the prisoners he had taken from Tarleton, and crossed the 
Catawba River just as the British came up. That night it 
rained hard, and the river rose so that it could not be crossed 
for three days. 

General Greene now joined Morgan, and the retreat con- 
tinued to the Yadkin River. This, too, was crossed by the 
Americans and a lucky rain again came up and swelled the 
river before the British could follow. When the British got 
across there was a race for the Dan River on the borders of 
Virginia. Greene got there first, crossed the stream, and held 
the fords against the foe. Cornwailis by this time had enough 
of it. Provisions were growing scarce, and he turned back. 
But he soon had Greene on his track, and he did not find his 
march a very comfortable one. 

Here I must tell you an interesting anecdote about 
General Greene. Once, during his campaign, he entered a 
tavern at Salisbury, in North Carolina. He was wet to the 
skin from a heavy rain. Steele, the landlord, knew him and 
looked at him in surprise. 



MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 



141 



"Why, general, you are not alone?" he asked. 
"Yes," said the general, ''here I am, all alone, very tired, 

hungry, and penniless." 
Mrs. Steele hastened 

to set a smoking hot meal 

before the hungry traveler. 

Then, while he was eating, 

she drew from under her 

apron two bags of silver 

and laid them on the table 

before him. 

" Take these, gen- 
eral," she said. "You 

need them and I can do 

without them." 

You may see that the 

women as well as the men 

of America did all they 

could for liberty, for there 

were many others like 

Mrs. Steele. 

I have told you that 
General Greene was one 
of the ablest of the Ameri- 
can leaders, and you have 
seen how he got the best 
of Cornw^allis in the re- 
treat. Several times after- 
wards he fought with the 
British. He was always 
defeated. His country 
soldiers could not face the British veterans. But each time he 
managed to get as much good from the fight as if he had 




LORD CORNWALUS 



142 MARION, THE SWAMP FOX AND GENERAL GREENE 

won a victory, and by the end of the year the British were shut 
up in Charleston and Savannah, and the South was free again. 

Where was Cornwallis during this time ? Greene had 
led him so far north that he concluded to march on into Vir- 
ginia and get the troops he would find there, and then come 
back. There was fighting going on in Virginia at this time. 
General Arnold, the traitor, was there, fighting against his 
own people. Against him was General Lafayette, a young 
Frer^ch nobleman who had come to the help of the Americans. 

I suppose some of you have read stories of how a wolf 
or some other wild animal walked into a trap, from which it 
could not get out again. Lord Cornwallis was not a wild 
animal, but he walked into just such a trap after he got to 
Virginia. When he reached there lie took com- 
^^ mand of Arnold's troops. But he found him- 

self not yet strong enough to face Lafayette, 
so he marched to Yorktown, near the mouth of York River, 
where he expected to get help by sea from New York. York- 
town was the trap he walked into, as you will see. 

France had sent a fleet and an army to help the Ameri- 
cans, and just then this fleet came up from the West Indies 
and sailed into the Chesapeake, shutting off Yorktown from 
the sea. At the same time Washington, who had been 
closely watching what was going on, broke camp before New 
York and marched southward as fast as his men could go. 
Before Cornwallis could guess what was about to happen the 
trap was closed on him. In the bay near Yorktown was the 
strong French fleet ; before Yorktown was the army of Ameri- 
can and French soldiers. 

There was no escape. The army and the fleet bombarded 
the town. A week of this was enough for Lord Cornwallis. 
He surrendered his army, seven thousand strong, on October 
19, 1 78 1, and the war was at an end. America was free. 




GENERAL LEE'S INVASION OF THE NORTH 

The Confederate army under General Lee twice invaded the North. The first invasion was brought to a disastrous end by the Rattle 

o; Antietam, September 17. 1862. J he second invasion ended with greater disaster at Gettysburg, J uh --3,1863. 

Gettysburg was the greatest and Antietam the bloodiest battles of the war 



CHAPTER XV 

The Voyage of Our Ship of State 




AVE any of my young readers ever been to 
Europe ? Likely enough some of you may have 
been, for even young folks cross the ocean 
now-a-days. It has got to be an easy journey, 
with our great and swift steamers. But in past 
times it was a long and difficult journey, in which the ship 
was often tossed by terrible storms, and sometimes was broken 
to pieces on the rocks or went to the bottom with all on board. 
What I wish to say is, that those who come from Europe 
to this country leave countries that are governed by kings, 
and come to a country that is governed by the people. In 



some of the countries of Europe the people 

Government 



might as well be slaves, for they have no vote ^ eop e s 



and no one to speak for them, and the man 
who rules them is born to power. Even in England, which 
is the freest of them all, there is a king or queen and a 
House of Lords who are born to power. The people can 
vote, but only for members of the House of Commons. They 
have nothing to do with the monarch or the Lords. 

Of course you all know that this is not the case in our 
country. Here every man in power is put there by the votes 
of the people. As President Lincoln said, we have a govern- 
ment; " of the people, by the people, and for the people." 

We did not have such a government before the 4th of 
July, 1776. Our country was then governed by a king, and, 

143 



144 



THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE 



what was worse, this king 
and cared nothing for the 
bags to fill his purse, 
of July we governed our- 
no king for lord and 
have got along very well 
Now you can see 
tion of Independence 
tion meant. With the 
cut loose from England, 
set out on its long voy- 
The Declaration cut the 
ened this great ship to 



was on the other side of the ocean, 
people of America except as money 
But after that 4th 
selves, and had 
master ; and we 
without one. 
what the Declara- 
and the Revolu- 
Declaration we 
Our Ship of State 
age to liberty, 
chain that fast- 
England's shores. 




INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA 

(Washington's statue in front) 



The Revolution was like the stormy passage across the ocean 
waves. At times it looked as if our Ship of State would be 
torn to pieces by the storms, or driven back to the shores 



THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE 145 

from which it set sail ; but then the clouds would break and 
the sun shine, and onward our good ship would speed. At 
length it reached the port of liberty, and came to anchor far 
away from the land of kings. 

This is a sort of parable, I think every one of you will 
know what it means. The people of this country had enough 
of kings and their ways, and of being taxed 
without their consent. They determined to be ^^ p^^^ 
free to tax and govern themselves. It was for 
this they fought in the Revolution, and they won liberty with 
their blood. 

And now, before we go on with the history of our coun- 
try, it will be wise to stop and ask what kind of government 
the Americans gave themselves. They had thrown overboard 
the old government of kings. They had to make a new 
government of the people. I hope you do not think this was 
an easy task. If an architect or builder is shown a house and 
told to build another like that, he finds it very easy to do. 
But if he is shown a heap of stone and bricks and wood and 
told to build out of them a good strong house unlike any he 
has ever seen, he will find his task a very hard one, and may 
spoil the house in his building. 

That was what our people had to do. They could have 
built a king's government easily enough. They had plenty 
of patterns to follow for that. But they had no pattern for a 
people's government, and, like the architect and his house, 
they might spoil it in the making. The fact is, this is just 
what they did. Their first government was spoiled in the 
making, and they had to take it down and build it over again. 

This was done by what we call a Convention, made up 
of delegates sent by the several states. The Convention met 
in Philadelphia in 1 787 for the purpose of forming a Constitu- 
tion ; that is, a plan of government under which the people 



146 THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE 

should live and which the states and their citizens should 
have to obey. 

This Convention was a wonderful body of statesmen. 

Its like has not often been seen. The wisest and ablest men 

of all the states were sent to it. They included all the great 

men — some we know already, Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, 

and Adams and many others of fine ability. 

Constitutional t- r .i .1 1 1 • 

Convention ^^^ ^^^^ months these men worked m secret. 

It was a severe task they had to perform, for 
some wanted one thing and some another, and many times 
it looked as if they would never agree ; but at length all 
disputes were settled and their long labors were at an end. 

General Washington was president of the Convention, 
and back of the chair on which he sat the figure of the sun 
was painted on the wall. When it was all over, Benjamin 
Franklin pointed to this painting and said to those who stood 
near him : 

" Often while we sat here, troubled by hopes and fears, 
I have looked towards that figure, and asked myself if it was a 
rising or a setting sun. Now I know that it is the rising sun." 

The rising sun indeed it was, for when the Convention 
had finished its work it had formed the noble Constitution 
under which we now live, the greatest state paper which man 
has ever formed. 

But I fancy you want to know more about the noble 
framework of government built by the wise men of the Con- 
vention of 1787. 

After the Union was formed there were thirteen states 
still, but each of these had lost some of its old powers. The 
powers taken from the states were given to the general gov- 
ernment. Every state had still the right to manage its own 
affairs, but such things as concerned the whole people were 
managed by the general government. 



THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE 147 

What were these things ? Let us see. There was the 
power to com money, to lay taxes, to control the post-office 
and to make laws for the good of the whole nation. And 
there was the power to form an army and navy, to make 
treaties with other countries, and to declare war if we could 
not get on in peace. 

Under the Con- 
federation which was 
formed during the 
Revolutionary War, the 
states could do these 
things for themselves ; 
under the Constitution 
they could do none of 
these things, but they 
could pass laws that 
affected only them- 
selves, and could tax 
their own people for 
state purposes. 

I have spoken 
several times of the 
general government. 
No doubt you wish to 
know what this govern- 

ment was like. Well, it consisted of three bodies, one of 
which made laws for the people, the second considered if these 
aws agreed with the Constitution, the third executed these 
laws, or put them in force. 

th. T^^^f ^c ^ '^^^ '"^'^' "^^ '^^' ^"^^ "^'"^d 'he Congress of 

i le^":! f ''"■ \ ^°""^^'^' °^ '^^"^ -='-"- On- was 
called the Senate, and was made up of two members from 

each state. As we have now forty-five states the Senate at 




CARPENTERS' HALL, PHILADELPHIA 

"^Snitelf St^r""f " "'' "^''^'^ '""'^^ '^^ Constitution for the 
United States and over which George Washington presided 



148 



THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE 



present has ninety members. The other section was called 
the House of Representatives, and its members were directly 
voted for by the people. The members of the Senate were 
voted for by the legislatures of the states, who had been 
elected by the people. 

All the laws were to be made by Congress, but not one 
of them could 
become a law 
until approv- 
ed by the 
President. If 
he did not 
approve of 




THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON RECEIVING MARQUIS LAFAYETTE 
Previous to his departure for Europe, in the fall of 1784, the Marquis de Lafayette repaired to Fredericks- 
burg to pay his parting respects to 'Washington's mother and to ask her blessing 

any law, he vetoed it, or returned it without being signed 
with his name, and then it could not be enforced as a law 
until voted for by two-thirds of the members of Congress. 

It was the duty of the President to execute the laws. 
He took the place of the king in other countries. But he was 



THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE 149 

not born to his position like a king, but had to be voted for 
by the people, and could only stay in office for four years. 
Then he, or some one else, had to be voted for again. 

Next to the President was the Vice-President, who was 
to take his place if he should die or resign. While the 
President was in office the Vice-President had nothing to do 
except to act as presiding officer of the Senate. What we call 
the Cabinet are persons chosen by the President to help him 
in his work. You must understand that it takes a number of 
leading men and a great many under men to do all the work 
of the head of our government. 

The third body of our government was called the 
Supreme Court. This was made up of some of the ablest 
lawyers and judges of the country. They were 
not to be voted for, but to be chosen by the court"'"'^'"* 
President. The duty of the Supreme Court is 
to consider any law brought to its notice and decide if it 
agrees with the Constitution. If the Court decides that a law 
is not constitutional, it ceases to be of any effect. 

This is not so very hard to understand is it ? The 
President and Congress elected by the people ; the Supreme 
Court and Cabinet selected by the President ; the Constitu- 
tion the foundation of our goverment ; and the laws passed 
by Congress the edifice erected on the foundation. 

Its great feature is that it is a republic — a government 
" of the people, by the people, and for the people." Ours is 
is not the first republic. There have been others. But it is 
the greatest. It is the only one that covers half a continent, 
and is made up of states many of which are larger than some 
of the kingdoms of Europe. For more than a hundred years 
the Constitution made in 1 787 has held good. Then it cov- 
ered thirteen states and less than four million people ; now it 
covers forty-five states and nearly eighty million people. 




CHAPTER XVI 

The End of a Noble Life 

VERY four years a great question arises in this 
country, and all the States and their people are 
disturbed until this question is settled. Even 
business nearly stops still, for many persons can 
think of nothing but the answer to this question. 
Who shall be President ? That is the question which at 
the end of every four years troubles the minds of our people. 
This question was asked for the first time in 1788, after the 
Constitution had been made and accepted by the States, but 
this time the people found it a very easy question to answer. 
There were several mea who had taken a great part in 
the making of our country, and who might have 
President ^^^^ named for President. One of these was 
Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of 
Independence. Another of them was Benjamin Franklin, 
who got France to come to our aid, and did many other noble 
things for his country. But none of them stood so high in 
the respect and admiration of the people as George Wash- 
ington, who had led our armies through the great war, and to 
whom, more than to any other man, we owed our liberty. 

This time, then, there was no real question as to who 
should be President. Washington was the man. All men, 
all parties, settled upon Washington. No one opposed him ; 
there was no man in the country like him. He was unani- 

mously elected the first President of the United States. 
150 



THE END OF A NOBLE LIFE 



151 



In olden times, when a victorious general came back to 
Rome with the splendid spoils brought from distant coun- 
tries, the people gave him a triumph, and all Rome rose to 
do him honor and to gaze upon the splendor of the show. 
Washington had no splendid spoils to display. But he had 




WASHINGTON TAKES OATH OF OFFICE 

the love of the people, which was far better than gold and 
silver won in war ; and all the way from his home at Mount 
Vernon to New York, where he was to take the office of 
President, the people honored him with a triumph. 

Along the whole journey men, women and children 
crowded the roadside, and waited for hours to see him pass. 
That was before the day of railroads, and he had to go 



152 THE END OF A NOBLE LIFE 

slowly in his carriage, so that everybody had a fine chance to 
see and greet him as he went by. Guns were fired as he 
passed through the towns ; arches of triumph were erected for 
his carriage to go under ; flowers were strewn in the streets 
for its wheels to roll over ; cheers and cries of greeting filled 
the air ; all that the people could do to honor their great hero 
was done. 

On the 30th of April, 1789, Washington took the oath 

of office as the first President of our country and people. He 

stood on the balcony of a building in front of Federal Hall, 

in which Congress met, and in the street before 

Ca^itaP^ *'^^" ^^"^ ^^^^ ^ ^^^^ multitude, full of joy and hope. 
When he had taken the oath cannon roared 
out, bells were rung in all the neighboring steeples, and a 
mighty shout burst from the assembled multitude : 

" Long live George Washington, President of the United 
States!" 

This, I have said, was in New York. But Philadelphia 
was soon chosen as the seat of government, and the President 
and Congress moved to that city the next year. There they 
stayed for ten years. In the year 1800 a new city, named 
Washington, on the banks of the Potomac, was made the 
capital of our country, and in that city Congress has met 
ever since. 

I must say something here about another of the great 
men of Revolutionary times, Alexander Hamilton. He was 
great in financial or money matters, and this was very im- 
portant at that time, for the finances of the country were in 
a sad state. 

In the Revolution our people had very little money, and 
that was one reason why they had so much suffering. Con- 
gress soon ran out of gold and silver, so it issued paper 
money. This did very well for a time, and in the end a great 



THE END OF A NOBLE LIFE 



153 




deal of paper money was set afloat, but people soon began to 
get afraid of it. There was too much money of this kind for 
so poor a country. The value of the Continental currency, 
as it was called, began to go down, and the price of every- 
thing else to go up. In time the paper money lost almost all 
its value. 

Such was the money the people had at the end of the 
Revolution. It was not good for much, was it ? But it was 
the only kind of money Congress had to pay the soldiers 
with or to pay 
the other debts 
of the govern- 
m e n t. The 
country owed 
much more 
money than it 
could pay, so 
that it was 
what we call 
bankrupt. No- 
body would 
trust it or take 

its paper in payment. What Alexander Hamilton did was 
to help the country to pay its debts and to bring back its lost 
credit, and in that way he won great honor. 

Hamilton came to this country from the West Indies 
during the Revolution. He was then only a boy, but he soon 
showed himself a good soldier, and Washington made him 
an officer on his staff and one of his friends. He often asked 
young Hamilton for advice, and took it, too. 

Hamilton was one of the men who made the Constitu- 
tion, and when Washington became President he chose him 
as his Secretary of the Treasury. That is, he gave him the 




ONE SIXTH OFA. SPANISH 
MUt'd iyolte^:orthe\kUw 
thereojf^ GoldorSiiver ^ 
/o^£ given in. excliange at ^ 

Treasury of PiR€?/2V^ZA, srjy 
Tursuatif fo A.C T oj (^ 1 

ASSE"MBlL.Yy^ 
^/>i<>u>,j^ 1777. ^' 



cs- 




i^. 



■rff^ 



"VIRGINIA curren cy:^ 



154 



THE END OF A NOBLE LIFE 



money affairs of the government to look after. Hamilton was 
not afraid of the load of debt, and he soon took off its weight. 
He asked Congress to pay not only its own debt, but that 
of the states as well, and also to make good all the paper 
money. Congress did not like to do this, but Hamilton 
talked to the members till he got them to do so. 




DUEL BETWEEN AARON BURR AND ALEXANDER HAMILTON 

Then he set himself to pay it. He laid a tax on whiskey 
and brandy and on all goods that came into the country. He 
had a mint and a national bank built in Philadelphia. He made 
the debt a government fund or loan, on which he agreed to pay 
interest, and to pay off the principal as fast as possible. It 
was not long before all the fund was taken up by those who 



THE END OF A NOBLE LIFE 155 

had money, and the country got back its lost credit. After 
that all went well. 

Washington was President for eight years. That made 
two terms of four years each. Many wished to make him 
President for a third term, but he refused to run again. Since 
then no one has been made President for more than two terms. 

George Washington had done enough for his country. 
He loved his home, but he had little time to live there. When 
he was only a boy he was called away to take 
part in the French and Indian War. Then, ^^^^ oa^J*" ^ 
after spending some happy years at home, he 
was called away again to lead the army in the Revolutionary 
War. Finally, he served his country eight years as President. 

He was now growing old and wanted rest, and he went 
back with joy to his beloved home at Mount Vernon, hoping 
to spend there the remainder of his days. But trouble arose 
with France, and it looked as if there would be a new war, 
and Washington was asked to take command of the army 
again. He consented, though he had had enough of fighting ; 
but fortunately the war did not come, so he was not obliged 
to abandon his home. 

He died in December, 1799, near the end of the century 
of which he was one of the greatest men. The news of his 
death filled all American hearts with grief. Not while the 
United States exists will the name of Washington be forgotten 
or left without honor. His home and tomb at Mt. Vernon 
are visited each year by thousands of patriotic Americans. 
As was said of him long ago by General Henry Lee, he was 
and is, "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 
of his countrymen." 




CHAPTER XVII 

The Steamboat and the Cotton Qin 

THINK you must now have learned a great deal 
about the history of your country from the time 
Columbus crossed the ocean till the year 1800, 
the beginning of the century in which you were 
born. You have been told about discovery, and 
settlement, and wars, and modes of life, and government, and 
other things, but you must bear in mind that these are not the 
whole of history. The story of our country is broad and 
deep enough to hold many other things than these. For 
instance, there is the story of our great inventors, to whom we 
owe so much. I propose in this chapter to tell you about 
some of those who lived near the year 1800. 

First, I must ask you to go back with me to a kitchen in 
Scotland many years ago. On the open hearth of that kitchen 
a bright fire blazed, and near by sat a thoughtful-faced boy, 
with his eyes fixed on the tea-kettle which was 
and thrKettie^ boiling away over the fire, while its lid kept lift- 
ing to let the steam escape. His mother, who 
was hustling about, no doubt thought him idle, and may have 
scolded him a little. But he was far from idle ; he was busy 
at work — not with his hands, but with his brain. The brain, 
you know, may be hard at work while the body is doing 
nothing. 

How many of you have seen the lid of a kettle of boiling 
water keeping up its clatter as the steam lifts it and puffs out 
into the air ? And what thought has this brought into your 

166 



THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN 



157 



mind ? Into the mind of little James Watt, the Scotch boy, 
it brought one great thought, that of power. As he looked 
at it, he said to himself that the steam which comes from 
boiling water must have a great deal of force, if a little of it 
could keep the kettle lid clattering up and down ; and he asked 
himself if such a power could not be put to some good use. 
Our Scotch boy was not the first one to have that thought. 




THE COTTON GIN, INVENTED IN 1793 
A machine which does the work of more than 1,000 men 



Others had thought the same thing, and steam had been used 
to move a poor sort of engine. But what James Watt did 
when he grew up, was to invent a much better engine than 
had ever been made before. It was a great day for us all 
when that engine was invented. Before that time men had 
done most of the work of the world with their hands, and you 



158 THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN 

may imagine that the work went on very slowly. Since that time 

most of the world's work has been done with the aid of the 

steam-engine, and one man can do as much as many men could 

'^i^-^^.^-^-^^-r^^^^^,^ ^(^ jj^ ^^ past. You have seen the 

.:' wheels rolling and heard 

f the machines rattling and 

1^ NAi the hammers clanging 

E s^^aML<QAT ^ in our g"reat factories 

and workshops. And 

I fancy most of you 

i ^^-, know that back of all these is 



,«'J «»,«Pf teRf; %9-- M* ■■ 



^se^- 



''S^SiCrii&vi'Sff:^?; -s 



\^" 



;s STEAT.';eo.''i~ 

WEEN PHILAD^LPH^A 



^ T ^.. ^ : -. .... .7, ^^^ ^j^^ ^^^ under the boilers 

/ and the steam in the en- 
gine, the mighty magician 
which sets all these wheels 
' and machines at work and con- 
,««»=.::« . .. «™«™.-. V verts raw material into so many 

^ \ things of use and beauty. 

^ Now let us come back to 

^ our American inventors. I 

have spoken about the steam 

; engine because it was with this 

/ that most of them worked. They 

thought that if horses could drag 

a wagon over the ground and 

the wind could drive a vessel through 

the water, steam might do the same 

thing, and they set themselves to see 

in what way a carriage or a boat. could 

be moved by a steam engine. 

Very likely you have all heard about Robert Fulton and 

his steamboat, but you may not know that steamboats were 

running on American waters years before that of Fulton was 



WITH l-;is SIDE'.VHPe£ 



THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN 



159 



built Why, as long ago as 1768, before the Revolutionary 
War, Oliver Evans, one of our first inventors, had made a 
little boat which was moved by steam and paddle-wheels. 
Years afterwards he made a large engine for a boat at New 
Orleans. It was put in the boat, but there came a dry season 
and low water, so that the boat could not be used, and the 
owners took the engine out and set it to work on a saw-mill. 
It did so well there that it was never put back in the boat ; so 
that steamboat never had a chance. 

Oliver Evans was the first man who lived to make a 
steam-carriage, but there were others who thought they could 
move a boat by steam. Some of 
these were in Europe and some in 
America. Down in Virginia was an 
inventor named Rumsey who moved 
a boat at the speed of four miles an 
hour. In this boat jets of water 
were pumped through the stern and 
forced the boat along. In Philadel- 
phia was another man named John 
Fitch, who was the first man to make 
a successful steamboat. His boat was moved with paddles 
like an Indian canoe. It was put on the Delaware River, 
between Philadelphia and Trenton in 1790, and ran for 
several months as a passenger boat, at the speed of seven or 
eight miles an hour. Poor John Fitch ! He was unfortunate 
and in the end he killed himself 

I am glad to be able to tell you a different story of the 
next man who tried to make a steamboat. His name was 
Robert Fulton. He was born in Pennsylvania, and as a 
boy was very fond of the water, he and the other boys 
having an old flat-boat which they pushed along with a pole. 
Fulton got tired of this way of getting along; and like a 




OLD STYLE PRINTING PRESS 



i6o THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN 

natural-born inventor set his wits to work. In the end he 
made two paddle wheels which hung over the sides and could 
be moved in the water by turning a crank and so force the 
boat onward. The boys found this much easier than the 
pole, and likely enough young Fulton thought a large vessel 
might be moved in the same way. 

He knew all about what others had done. He had heard 
how Ramsey moved his boat by pumping water through the 
stern, and Fitch by paddling it along. And 
First Boat ^^ ^^^ sttn 3. boat in Scotland moved by a 

stern paddle-wheel. I fancy he had not forgot- 
ten the side paddle-wheel he made as a boy to go fishing 
with, for when he set out to invent his steamboat this is the 
plan he tried. 

Fulton made his first boat in France, but he had bad 
luck there. Then he came to America and built a boat in 
New York. While he was at work on this boat in America, 
James Watt, of whom I have already told you, was building 
him an engine in England. He wanted the best engine that 
he could get, and he thought the Scotch inventor was the 
right man to make it. 

While Fulton was working some of the smart New 
Yorkers were laughing. They called his boat '* Fulton's 
Folly," and said it would not move faster than the tide would 
carry it. But he let them laugh and worked on, and at last, 
one day in 1807, the new boat, which he named the "Cler- 
mont," was afloat in the Hudson ready for trial. Hundreds of 
curious people came to see it start. Some were ready to laugh 
again when they saw the boat, with its clumsy paddle-wheels 
hanging down in the water on both sides. They were not 
covered with wooden frames as were such wheels afterwards. 

"That boat move? So will a log move if set adrift," 
said the wiseacres. " It will move when the tide moves it, 



THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN 



i6i 



and not before." But none of them felt like laughing when 
they saw the wheels-begin to turn and the boat to glide out 
into the stream, moving against the tide. 

"She moves! she moves!" cried the crowd, and nobody 
said a word about " Fulton's Folly." 

Move she did. Up the Hudson she went against wind 
and current, and reached Albany, one hundred and forty-two 




BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBERS, AUGUST 20, 1794 
The Indians were defeated by General Wayne known as " Mad Anthony." 

miles away, in thirty- two hours. This was at the rate of four 
and a half miles an hour. It was not many years before 
steamboats were running on all our rivers. 

That is all I shall say here about the steamboat, for there 
is another story of invention I wish to tell you before I close. 
This is about the cotton fibre, which you know is the great 
product of the Southern States. 

The cotton plant when ripe has a white, fluffy head, a 
great bunch of snow-white fibres within, which are the seeds. 



1 62 THE STEAMBOAT AND THE COTTON GIN 

In old times these had to be taken out by hand, and it was a 
whole day's work for a negro to get the seeds out of a pound 
of the cotton. This made cotton so dear that not much of it 
could be sold. In 1784 eight bags of it were sent to Liver- 
pool, and the custom-house people there seized it for duties. 
They said it must have been smuggled from some other coun- 
try, for the United States could not have produced such a 
"prodigious quantity." 

A few years afterwards a young man named Eli Whitney 
went South to teach in a private family, but before he got 
there some one else had his situation, and he was left with 
Eli Whitney nothing to do. Mrs. Greene, the widow of 
and the General Greene who fought so well in the 

Cotton Gm Revolution, took pity on him and gave him 

a home in her house. He paid her by fixing up things about 
her house. She found him so handy that she asked him if 
he could not invent a machine to take the seeds out of the 
cotton. Whitney said he would try, and he set himself to 
work. It was not long before he had a machine made which 
did the work wonderfully well. This machine is known as the 
"cotton-gin," or cotton engine, for gin is short for engine. 
On one side of it are wires so close together that the seeds 
cannot get through. Between them are circular saws which 
catch the cotton and draw it through, while the seeds pass on. 

The machine was a simple one, but it acted like magic. 
A hundred negroes could not clean as much cotton in a day 
as one machine. The price of cotton soon went down and a 
demand for it sprang up. In 1795, when the cotton gin was 
made, only about 500,000 pounds of cotton were produced in 
this country. By 1801 this had grown to 20,000,000 pounds. I| 

Now it has grown to more than 10,000,000 bales, of nearly 
500 pounds each. 



I! 




CHAPTER XVIII 

How the Eng:Iish and the Americans 

Fought Again 

^OR years before and after the year 1800 all Europe 
was filled with war and bloodshed. Most of my 
readers must have heard of Napoleon Bonaparte, 
one of the greatest generals that ever lived, and 
one of the most cruel men. He was at the head 
of the armies of France, and was fighting all Europe. Eng- 
land was his greatest enemy and fought him on land and sea 
and this fighting on the sea made trouble between England 
and the United States. 

The English wanted men for their war-vessels and said 
they had a right to take Englishmen wherever they could 
find them. So they began to take sailors off of 
American merchant vessels. They said that ^^^^^'"^ *«*■ 
these men were deserters from the British navy, ^^'' 
but the fact is that many of them were true-born Americans, and 
our people grew very angry as this went on year after year. 
What made it worse was the insolence of some of the 
British captains. One of them went so far as to stop an 
American war-vessel, the "Chesapeake," and demand part of 
her crew, who, he saia, were British deserters. When Captain 
Barron refused to give them up the British captain fired all his 
guns and killed and wounded numbers of the American crew 
The "Chesapeake" had no guns fit to fire back, so her flag 
had to be pulled down and the men to be given up. 

16?? 



164 



ENGLISH AND AMERICANS FIGHT AGAIN 



You may well imagine that this insult made the Ameri- 
can blood boil. There would have been war at that time if 
the British government had not apologized and offered to pay 
for the injury. A few years afterwards the insult was paid for 
in a different way. Another proud British captain thought he 
could treat Americans in the same insulting fashion. The 




THE WHITE HOUSE AT "WASHINGTON, D. C. 



frigate "President" met the British sloop-of-war "Little 
Belt," and hailed it, the captain calling through his trumpet, 
"What ship is that?" 

Instead of giving a civil reply the British captain answered 
with a cannon shot. Then the "President" fired a broad- 
side which killed eleven and wounded twenty-one men on the 
"Little Belt." When the captain of the "President" hailed 
again the insolent Briton was glad to reply in a more civil 
fashion. He had been taught a useful lesson. 



ENGLISH AND AMERICANS FIGHT AGAIN 



165 



The United States was then a poor country, and not in 
condition to go to war. But no nation could submit to such 
insults as these. It is said that more than six thousand sailors 
had been taken from our merchant ships, and among these were 
two nephews of General Washington, who were seized while 
they were on their way home from Europe, and put to work 
as common seaman on a British war-vessel. 

At length, on June 18, 181 2, the United States declared 




THE MARIGNY HOUSE, NEW ORLEANS 
■Where Louis Philippe stopped in 1798 



war against Great Britain. It had put up with insults and 
injuries as long as it could bear them. It did not take long 
to teach the haughty British captains that American sea-dogs 
were not to be played with. The little American fleet put to 
sea, and before the end of the year it had captured no less- 
than five of the best ships in the British navy and had not 
lost a single ship in return. I fancy the people of England 
quit singing their proud song, " Britannia rules the waves." 



1 66 ENGLISH AND AMERICANS FIGHT AGAIN 

Shall I tell you the whole story of this war ? I do not 
think it worth while, for there is much of it you would not 
care to hear. The war went on for two years and ahalf, on 
sea and land, but there were not many important battles 
and the United States did not win much honor on land. But 
on the sea the sailors of our country covered themselves 
with glory. 

Most of the land battles were along the borders of 

Canada. Here there was a good deal of fighting, but most 

of it was of no great account. At first the British 

Great Britain ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^' ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ Americans be- 
gan to win battles, but it all came to an end 
about where it began. Neither side gained anything for the 
men that were killed. 

There was one naval battle in the north that I must tell 
you about. On Lake Erie the British had a fleet of six war- 
vessels, and for a time they had everything their own way. 
Then Captain Oliver Perry, a young officer, was sent to the 
lake to build a fleet and fight the British. 

When he got there his ships were growing in the woods. 
He had to cut down trees and build ships from their timber. 
But he worked like a young giant, and in a few weeks he 
had some vessels built and afloat. He got others on the 
lake, and in a wonderfully short time he had a fleet on the 
lake and was sailing out to find the British ships. 

They met on September lo, 1813. The Americans had 
the most vessels, but the British had the most guns, and soon 
they were fighting like sea-dragons. The ''Lawrence," Captain 
Perry's flagship, fought two of the largest British ships till it 
was nearly ready to sink, and so many of its crew were killed 
and wounded that it had only eight men left fit for fighting. 
What do you think the brave Perry did then ? He leaped 
into a small boat and was rowed away, with the American 




.-A 

'/;\CHARY / 
TAYLOR 



1849-1850 



J 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1829 TO 1850 




BATTLE OF RESACA DE lA PALMA 

Captain May leaped his steed over the parapets, follower' by those of his men whose hordes coiiid do a like Jeat and was among 

the gunners the next moment, sabering right and lett. General l.a Vega and a hundred of his men were made 

prisoners and borne back to the American lines. 



AMERICANS AND ENGLISH FIGHT AGAIN 



167 



flag floating in his hand, though the British ships were firing 
hotly at him. 

When he reached the ''Niagara," another of his ships, 

he sprang on board and j|'|j " 

sailed right through the 
enemy's fleet, firing 
right and left into 
their shattered ves- 




WEATHERSFORD AND GENERAL JACKSON 



sels. The British soon had enough of this, and in fifteen 
minutes more they gave up the fight. 

"We have met the enemy and they are ours," wrote 
Perry to General Harrison. He was a born hero of the waves. 



168 AMERICANS AND ENGLISH FIGHT AGAIN 

Now I think we had better take a look out to sea and 
learn what was going on there. We did not have many 
ships, but they were like so many bulldogs in a flock of sheep. 
The whole world looked on with surprise to see our little 
fleet of war-vessels making such havoc in the proud British 
navy which no country in Europe had ever been able to 
defeat. 

In less than two months after war was declared the 
frigate "Essex" met the British sloop-of-war "Alert" and 
took it in eight minutes, without losing a man. The " Essex " 
was too strong for the "Alert," but six days afterwards the 
"Constitution" met the "Guerriere," and these 
tories at Sea vessels were nearly the same in size. But in 
half an hour the "Guerriere" was nearly cut to 
pieces and ready to sink, and had lost a hundred of her men. 
The others were hastily taken off, and then down went the 
proud British frigate to the bottom of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 

All the island of Great Britain went into mourning when it 
learned how the Americans had served this good ship. There 
was soon more to mourn for. The American sloop " Wasp " 
captured the British sloop "Frolic." The frigate "United 
States" captured the frigate "Macedonia." The "Constitu- 
tion" met the "Java" and served it the same way as it had 
done the "Guerriere." In two hours the "Java" was a wreck. 
Soon after the sloop " Hornet " met the ship " Peacock " and 
handled her so severely that she sank while her crew was 
being taken off 

Later on the British won two battles at sea, and that was 
all they gained during the whole war. On the water the 
honors stayed with the Americans. 

There was one affair in which the British won dishonor 
instead of honor. In July, 1814, a strong British fleet sailed 
up Chesapeake Bay, with an army of nearly five thousand 



AMERICANS AND ENGLISH FIGHT AGAIN 169 

men on board. These were landed and marched on the city 
of Washington, the capital of the young republic. 

Their coming was a surprise. There were few trained 
soldiers to meet this army, and those were not the days of rail- 
roads, so that no troops could be brought in haste from afar. 
Those that gathered were nearly all raw militia, and they did 
not stand long before the British veterans who had fought in 
the wars with Napoleon. They were soon put to flight 
and the British army marched into our capital city. 

There they behaved in a way that their country has ever 
since been ashamed of They set fire to the public buildings 
and burned most of them to the ground. The Capitol, the 
President's house, and other buildings were 
burned, and the records of the government ^^^ ^^ ^ 
were destroyed. Then, having acted like so 
many savages, the British hurried away before the Americans 
could get at them for revenge. That was a victory, I fancy, 
which the British do not like to read about. 

They had been so successful at Washington that they 
thought they would try the same thing with another city. This 
time they picked out New Orleans, which was so far away from 
the thickly settled part of the country that they fancied it 
would be an easy matter to capture it. In this they made a 
great mistake, as you will soon see. 

There was a general at New Orleans who was not used 
to being defeated. His name was Andrew Jackson, one of 
our bravest soldiers. He also had won fame in the war he 
waged with the Indians in Florida. He was a man who .was 
always ready to fight and this the English found when they 
marched on New Orleans. There were twelve thousand of 
them, and Jackson only had half that many. And the British 
were trained soldiers, while the Americans were militia. But 
they were old hunters and knew how to shoot. 



lyo AMERICANS AND ENGLISH FIGHT AGAIN 

Some of you may have heard that Jackson's men fought 
behind cotton bales. That is not quite true, but he was in 
such a hurry in building his breastworks that he did put in 
them some bales of cotton taken from the warehouses. The 
British, who were in as great a hurry, built a breastwork of 
Cotton Bales sugar hogsheads which they found on the plan- 
and Sugar tations. But the cannon balls soon set the 

Hogsheads cotton on fire and filled the air with flying 

sugar, so the bales and the hogsheads had to be pulled out. 
It was found that cotton and sugar, while good enough in 
their place, were not good things to stop cannon balls. 

Soon the British marched against the American works 
and there was a terrible fight. 

"Stand to your guns, my men," said Jackson to his sol- 
diers. " Make every shot tell. Give it to them." 

Many of the men were old hunters from Tennessee, some 
of whom could hit a squirrel in the eye, and when they fired 
the British fell in rows. Not a man could cross that terrible 
wall of fire, and they fought on until twenty-six hundred of 
them lay bleeding on the field, while only eight Americans 
were killed. 

That ended the battle. The men were not born who 
could face a fire like that. It ended the war also, and it was the 
last time Am.ericans and Englishmen ever fought each other. 
Jackson became the hero of the country, and he was finally 
elected President of the United States. I cannot say that 
he was a very good President. He was a very obstinate 
man, who always wanted to have his own way, and that is 
better in a soldier than in a president. 



CHAPTER XIX 



How the Victims of the Alamo were 

Revenged 




war 



fought 



HAVE told you the story of more than one 
I shall have to tell you now about still 

the 



another in which the Americans 
Mexicans in Texas. 

I suppose you know that Texas is one of 
our States, and the larg-est of them all. That is, it is larp-est 
in square miles ; not in number of people. In former times 
it was part of Mexico, and was a portion of what is -called Span- 
ish America. But there got to be more Americans in it than 
there were Spanish. People kept coming there from the United 
States until it was much more of an American than a Spanish 
country. 

General Santa Anna, who was at the head of the Mexican 
government at the time I speak of, was a good deal of a 
tyrant, and he tried to rule the people of Texas 
in a way they would not submit to. Then he 
ordered them to give up all their guns to his 
soldiers, but instead of that they took their guns and drove 
the Mexican soldiers away. After that there was war, as you 
might well suppose. 

I wish now to tell you about what happened to some 
very brave Americans. There were only one hundred and 
seventy-five of them, and they were attacked by General Santa 
Anna with an army of several thousand men. But they were 



The Heroes of 
the Alamo 



171 



172 



THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 



commanded by Colonel Travis, a brave young Texan, and 
among them was the famous David Crockett, a great hunter, 
and Colonel James Bowie, who invented the terrible " bowie- 
knife," and other bold and daring men. They had made a 
fort of an old Spanish building called the Alamo. 




OSCEOLA'S INDIGNATION 

Osceola, the Seminole chief, drew his hunting knife and drove it through the treaty which some 
of his fellow chiefs had signed, and thus started the Seminole war, 1832 



The kind of men I have named do not easily give up. 
The Mexicans poured bomb-shells and cannon balls into 
their fort, battering down the walls and killing many of them, 
but they fought on like tigers, determined to die rather than 
surrender. At length so many of them were dead that there 
were not enough left to defend the walls, and the Mexican 
soldiers captured the Alamo. The valiant Crockett kept 



THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 173 

on fighting, and when he fell, the ground before him was 
covered with Mexican dead. Then Santa Anna ordered his 
soldiers to shoot down all that were left. That is what is 
called the " Massacre of the Alamo." 

It was not long before the Americans had their revenge. 
Their principal leader was a bold and able man named 
Samuel Houston. He had less than eight hundred men 
under him, but he marched on the Mexicans, who had then 
about eighteen hundred men. 

" Men, there is the enemy," said brave General Houston. 
"Do you wish to fight?" 

"We do," they all shouted. Remember 

"Charge on them, then, for liberty or death ! the Alamo 
Remember the Alamo !" 

" Remember the Alamo ! " they cried, as they rushed 
onward with the courage of lions. 

In a little time the Mexicans were running like frightened 
deer, and the daring Texans were like deer hounds on their 
track. Of the eighteen hundred Mexicans all but four hun- 
dred Avere killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, while the 
Americans lost only thirty men. They had well avenged the 
gallant Travis and his men. 

The cruel Santa Anna was taken prisoner. He had only 
one sound leg, and the story was that he was caught with his 
wooden leg stuck fast in the mud. Many of the Texans 
wanted to hang him for his murders at the Alamo, but in the 
end he was set free. 

All this took place in 1835. Texas was made an inde- 
pendent country, the "Lone Star Republic," with General 
Houston for President. But its people did not want to stand 
alone. They were American born and wished to belong to 
the United States. So this country was asked to accept Texas 
as a state of the Union. Nine years after this was done. 



^74 



THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 



Perhaps some of my readers may think that this story has 
much more to do with the history of Mexico than that of the 
United States. But the taking of Texas as a state was United 
States history, and so was 'what followed. You know how one 




"GIVE THEM WATTS, BOYS!" 
\ A scene previous to battle in Revolutinary War, 
When gun wadding ran short the Chaplain 
tore to pieces 'his Watt's hymn book and dis- 
tributed it. 



thmg 



leads to another. 
Mexico did not feel like 
giving up Texas so easily, 
and her rulers said that the United States had no right to 
take it. It was not long before the soldiers of the two 
countries met on the border lands and blood was shed. There 
was a sharp fight at a place called Palo Alto and a sharper 




%...;^..,.5..^^^ 



^rV^^s::^^' 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1850 TO 1877 




^o 



3 S 
.3 S 






o ts s 

■-"^ I 



z 
o 

-" a oj 4, 

LI rt a.^t: 

O °-='Z 

I- rti3- 

o li; 2 '^ 

Z " S u, 

oj J:: 

O 5 °-- 

•t "« ,. "• 

LI S S^ 

:*■ o rt o 

O 3 u, 



'"OS 



O el 
-3 o 



J3 " 



THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 



175 



one at a place called Resaca de la Palma. In both of them 
the Mexicans were defeated. 

Congress then declared war against Mexico, and very 
soon there was hard fighting going on elsewhere. General 
Zachary Taylor, a brave officer, who had fought the Seminole 
Indians in Florida, 
led the American 
troops across the 
Rio Grande River 
into Mexico, and 
some time after- 
wards marched to 
aplace called Buena 
Vista. He had 
only five thousand 
men, while Santa 
Anna was march- 
ing against him 
with twenty thou- 
sand — four to one. 
General Taylor's 
army was in great 
danger. Santa Anna 
sent him a mes- 
sage, asking him 
him to surrender 
if he did not want 
his army to be cut 
to pieces ; but Rough and Ready, as Taylor's men called him, 
sent word back that he was there to fight, not to surrender. 

The battle that followed was a desperate one. It took 
place on February 23, 1847. The Mexican lancers rode 
bravely against the American lines and were driven back at 




AN INDIAN'S DECLARATION OF WAR 
A scene in early colonial times 



176 THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 

the cannon's mouth. For ten long hours the fighting went 
on. The Mexicans gained the high ground above the pass 
and put the American troops in danger. Charge after charge 
was made, but Hke bull dogs the Yankee soldiers held their 
ground. On came the dashing Mexican lancers, shouting their 
war-cry of "God and Liberty," and charging a 
L*b^ t " battery commanded by Captain Bragg. The 

lancers captured some of the guns and drove 
the soldiers back. Captain Bragg sent a messenger in haste 
to General Taylor, saying that he must have more men. 

"I have no more men to send you," said Rough and 
Ready. " Give them a little more grape, Captain Bragg." 

The cannon were loaded with grape-shot and fired into 
the ranks of the enemy, cutting great gaps through them. 
Again and again they were loaded and fired, and then the fine 
Mexican cavalry turned and fled. They could not stand any 
more of Captain Bra'gg's grape. 

That night both armies went to sleep on the field of 
battle. But when the next day dawned the Mexicans were 
gone. Santa Anna had led them away during the night and 
General Taylor had won the greatest victory of the war. 
He received a noble reward for it, for the following year he 
was elected President of the United States. 

The next thing done in this war was an attempt to cap- 
ture the city of Mexico, the capital of the country. The 
easiest way to get there was by sea, for it was a long journey 
by land, so a fleet was got ready and an army sent south on 
the Gulf of Mexico. This army was led by General Win- 
field Scott, who had fought against the British in the War 
of 1812. 

Onward they sailed till they came before the seaport city 
of Vera Cruz. This had a strong fort, which was battered for 
four days by the American cannon, when its walls were so 



THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 



1 1 



shattered that the Mexicans gave it up. In this way a good 
starting-point was gained. 

But I would have you all know that the Americans had 
no easy road before them. The city of Mexico lies in the 
centre of the country on land that is as high as many moun- 
tains, and the way to it from the coast goes steadily upward, 




A DISPUTE OVER A BRAND 

Cattle which are kept in large herds on the western plains are branded with the owners mark. 

They are caught with lassos and marks examined to settle disputes 

and has many difficult passes and rough places, where a small 
force might stop an army. 

If the Mexicans had known their business and had pos- 
sessed good generals I am afraid the Americans might never 
have got up this rugged road. The Mexicans had men enough 
but they wante-d able leaders. At one of the passes, named 



1 78 THE VICTIMS OF THE ALAMO 

Cerro Gordo, Santa Anna waited with 15,000 men. The 
Americans had only 9,000. It looked as if they might have 
to turn back. 

What did they do? Why, they managed to drag a bat- 
tery to the top of a steep hill that overlooked the pass. And 
while these guns poured their shot down on the astonished 
Mexicans the army attacked them in front. In 
Cerro Gordo ^ ^^^^ ^o^^s they wcrc in full flight. Five 
generals, and 3,000 men w^ere taken prisoners, 
and Santa Anna himself came so near being taken that he 
left his cork leg behind. Do you not think a general ought 
to have two good legs when he has to run as often as Santa 
Anna had ? 

Onward they marched until not very far aw^ay lay the 
beautiful city of Mexico. But here and there along the road 
were strong forts, and Santa Anna had collected a large army, 
three times as large as that of the Americans. You may see 
that General Scott had a very hard task before him. But 
here is one way to get past forts without fighting; which is, 
to go around them. This is what General Scott did. He 
marched to the south, and soon he was within ten miles of 
the capital without a battle. 

August 20th was a great day for the ._merican army. 
That day our brave troops fought like heroes, and before 
night they had won five victories. One of these was on a 
steep hill called Churubusco, which they charged up in the 
face of the Mexican guns. Then on they went, and in a short 
time more the old city, the most ancient in America, was in 
their hands. That ended the war. When peace was made 
the United States claimed the provinces of New Mexico and 
California, which had been captured by our soldiers, but for 
which Mexico was paid a large sum„ ' No one then dreamed 
how rich the provinces were in silver and gold. 




CHAPTER XX 

How Slavery Led to War 

LL of my young readers must know what a won- 
derful age this is that we Hve in, and what mar- 
velous things have been done. Some of you, 
no doubt, have read the stories of magic in the 
"Arabian Nights Entertainments," and thought 
them very odd, if not nonsensical. But if any one, a hundred 
years ago, had been told about the railroad, the telegraph, the 
photograph, the phonograph, vessels that run beneath the sur- 
face of the water, liquid air, and dozens of such discoveries, I 
fancy they would have called all this nonsense and "Arabian 
Nights " magic. Why. to think of it, a trolley car is as magi- 
cal, in its way, as Aladdin's wonderful lamp. 

But while you know much about these things, there has 
been one great step of progress which, I fancy, 
you know or think very little about. I do not ^^'^^ 

■' ■' Progress 

mean material but moral progress, for you must 

bear in mind that while the world has been growing richer it 

has also been growing better. 

A hundred years ago many millions of men were held as 
slaves in America and Europe. Some of these were black 
and some were white, but they could be bought and sold like 
so many cattle, could be whipped by their masters, and had 
no more rights than so many brute beasts. 

To-day there is not a slave in Europe or America. All 
these millions of slaves have been set free. Do you not think 

12 179 



i8o HOW SLAVERY LED rO WAR 

I am right in saying that the world has grown better as well 
as richer ? Why, fifty years ago there were millions of slaves 
in our own country, and now there is not one in all the land. 
Is not that a great gain to mankind ? But it is sad to think 
that this slavery gave rise to a terrible war. I shall have te) 
tell you about this war, after I have told you how slavery 
brought it on. 

In the early part of this book you read of how white men 
first came to this country. I have now to tell you that black 
men were broueht 







UNITED STATES 12-INCH BREECH-LOADING MORTAR, OR HOWITZER 



landed at Jamestown, a Dutch ship sailed up the James River 
and sold them some negroes to be held as slaves. 

You remember about Pocahontas, the Indian girl who 
saved the life of Captain John Smith. She was afterwards 
married to John Rolfe, the man who first planted tobacco in 
Virginia. John Rolfe wrote down what was going on in 
Virginia, and it was he who told us about these negroes 
brought in as slaves. This is what he wrote : 

"About the last of August came in, a Dutch marine-of- 
war, that sold us 20 Negars." 



HOW SLA VERY LED TO IVAJ^ 



i8i 



These twenty " Negars," as he called them, grew in 
Rumbers until there were four million negro slaves in our 
country in i860, when the war began. There are twice that 
many black people in the country to-day, but I am glad to be 
able to say that none of them are slaves. Yet how sad it is 
to think that it cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, 
and misery to multitudes of families, to set them free. 

''Where did all these black men come from?" I am 
sure I hear some young voice asking that question. Well, 
they came from Africa, the land of the negroes. 
In our time merchant ships are used to carrv ^^^^""^^ ^'^^ 

, - ^ -'as Slaves 

goods from one country to another. ' In old 
times many of these ships were used in carrying negroes to 
be sold as slaves. The wicked captains would steal the poor 
black men in Africa, or buy them from the chiefs, who had 
taken them prisoners in war. Some of them filled their ship:^ 
so full of these miserable victims that hundreds of them died 
and were thrown overboard. Then, when they got to the 
West Indies or to the shores of our country, they would sell 
all that were left alive to the planters, to spend the rest of 
their lives like oxen chained to the yoke. 

It was a very sad and cruel business, but people then 
thought it right, and some of the best men took part in it. 
That is why I say the world has grown better. We have a 
higher idea of right and wrong than our forefathers had. 

Slaves were kept in all parts of the country, in the North 
as well as the South. There were more of them in the South 
than in the North, for they were of more use there as workers 
in the tobacco and rice and cotton fields. Most of those in 
the North were kept as house servants. Not many of them 
were needed in the fields. 

The North had not much use for slaves, and in time laws 
were passed, doing away with slavery in all the Northern 



I82 



HOW SLAVERY LED TO WAR 



States. Very likely the same thing would have taken place ia 
the South if it had not been for the discovery of the cotton-gin. 
I have told you what a change this great invention made. 
Before that time it did not pay to raise cotton in our fields. 
After that time cotton grew to be a very profitable crop, and 
the cultivation of it spread wider and wider until it was planted 
over a great part of the South. 




ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT GARFIELD 

James A. Garfield was the twentieth President and was shot, as he was about to take the train at 

Washington, July 2, 1881, by a man who was disappointed in not obtaining an office 

This made a remarkable change. Negroes were very 
useful in the cotton fields, and no one in the South now 
thought of doing away with slavery. After 1808 no ships 
could bring slaves to this country, but there were a great 
many here then, and many others were afterwards born and 
grew up as slaves, so that the numbers kept increasing year 
after year. 




THE SURRCNOrR AT VORKTOWN 




AM READY FOR ANY SERVICE THAT I CAN GIVE MY COUNTRY" 

' '79^ our Government was about to declare war against France. Congress appointed Washington commander-in-ch'ef 
of the American Army. The Secretary of War carried the commission in person to Mt. Vernon The old 
hero, sitting on his horse in the harvest field, accepted in the above patriotic words 



HOW SLAVERY LED TO WAR 183 

There were always some people, both in the North and 
the South, who did not like slavery. Among them were 
Franklin and Washington and Jefferson and other greg-t men. 
In time there got to be so many of these people in the North 
that they formed what ^vere called Anti-slavery Societies. 
Some of them said that slavery should be kept where it was 
and not taken into any new states. Others said that every 
slave in the United States ought to be set free. 

This brought on great excitement all over the country. 
The people in the North who believed in slavery were often 
violent. Now and then there were riots. Buildings where 
Anti-slavery meetings were held were burned 
down. One of the leaders of the Abolition- ^".'". ^^ ^ 

Societies 

ists, as the Anti-slavery people were called, 
was dragged through the streets of Boston with a rope tied 
round his body, and would have been hanged if his friends 
had not got him away. 

But as time went on the Abolitionists grew stronger in 
the North. Many slaves ran away from their masters, and 
these were hidden by their white friends until they could get 
to Canada, where they were safe. In time it began to look 
as if war might come. All through the South and North 
people were excited. 

I do not think many of our people _ expected the cruel 
war that was coming. If they had they might have been more 
careful what they said and did. But for all that, war was close 
at hand, and two things helped to bring it on. 

There had been fighting in Kansas, one of the territories 
that was to be made into a state, and among the fighters was 
an old man named John Brown, who thought that God had 
called him to do all he could for the freedom of the slaves. 

Some people think that John Brown was not quite right 
in his brain. What he did was to gather a body of men and 



i84 HOW SLAVERY LED TO WAR 

to take possession of Harper's Ferry, on the Potomac River, 
where there was a government army. He thought that the 
slaves of Virginia would come to his aid in multitudes and 
that he could start a slave war that would run all through 
the South. 

It was a wild project. Not a slave came. But some 
troops came under Colonel Robert E. Lee, and Brown and 
his party were forced to surrender. Some of them were killed 
and wounded and the others taken prisoners. 
Jc^ifsrown John Brown and six others were tried and 
hanged. But the half-insane old man had done 
his work. That fight at Harper's Ferry helped greatly to 
bring on the war. 

I said there were two things. The other was the elec- 
tion of Abraham Lincoln as President. 

For a long time, as I have told you, the Abolitionists 
were weak. When they got stronger they formed a political 
party. In 1856 a new party, called the Republican Party, was 
formed and took in all the Abolitionists. It was so strong 
that in the election of that year eleven states voted for its 
candidate, John C. Fremont, the man who had taken California 
from Mexico. 

In i860 Abraham Lincoln, a Western orator of whom I 
shall soon tell you more, was the candidate of the Republican 
Party, and was elected President of the United States. 



CHAPTER XXI 



How Lincoln Became President 



I SHOULD like to tell 
you all about one of the great- 
est and noblest men who ever 
lived in our country, and give 
f you his story from the time he 
was born until the time he died. 
But that would be biography, 
and this is a book of history. 
Biography is the story of a 
man ; history is the story of a 
nation. So I cannot give 
you the whole life of Abraham 
Lincoln, but only that part of 
it which has to do with the 
history of our country. 

Nations, you should 
know, are divided into monarchies and republics. In a mon- 
archy the ruler is called a king, or some other name which 
means the same thing. And when a king dies his son takes 
his place as king. The king may be noble and wise, or he 
may be base and foolish ; he may be a genius, or he may be 
an idiot, without any sense at all ; he may be kind and just, 
or he may be cruel and unjust ; but for all that he is king. 
There may be some good points in letting a man be born 
king, but you can see that there are many bad ones. Very 
often the histoiy has shown these points. 

185 




ABRAHAM LINCOLN 



1 86 HOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT 

In a republic the ruler — who is called president instead 
of king — is not born to his office, but is chosen by the people ; 
and he cannot rule the nation all his life, but only for a few 
years. In that way the best and wisest man in the nation 
may be chosen as its ruler. We do not always get the best 
man in the United States ; but that is the fault of the people, 
it is not the fault of the system. There is one thing sure, we 
never get a fool or an idiot, as kingdoms sometimes do. 

There are times when we do choose our best and wisest 
man, and everybody thinks we did so when we made Abraham 
Lincoln President. As I have told you, as soon as he \vas 
made President a great war began between the two halves of 
our people. It is not so easy to rule in war as 
Abe Lincoln ^^ peace, and I must say that poor Lincoln had 

a very hard time of it. But he did the best he 
could, and people say now that no man in our nation could 
have done better. Abraham Lincoln stands next to George 
Washington among the great and noble men of America. 

There is one more thing it is well to know. It is not 
only the rich and proud that we choose to be our Presidents. 
Many of them have begun life as poor boys, and none of them 
began poorer than "honest Abe Lincoln," as the people he 
lived among called him. 

No doubt there are many poor boys among my readers, 
but I do not believe that any of you are as poor as was little 
Abe Lincoln, or have had as hard a life. So you see that while 
a king must have a king or great noble for father, a president 
may be the son of the poorest laborer. Any one of my young 
readers, if he can bring himself strongly to the notice of the 
people, may become President, and I should not wonder at 
all if some one among you should do so in future times. 

I told you that I would not speak about Abraham Lin- 
coln's early life, but I see that I shall have to do so. He was 



HO W LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT 



187 



born in a mean little log-cabin in the back-woods nearly a 
hundred years ago. His father could not read and did not like 
to work, and the poor little fellow had hardly enough to eat. 
His mother loved him, but she could do little for him, 
and she died when he was only eight years old. Then his 




EARLY HOME OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, GENTKYVILLL, INDIANA 



father married a second wife. She was a good woman, and 
she did all she could for the poor, forlorn little boy. But it 
did not look much then as if this ragged and hungry little 
chap would become President of the United States. 

There was one good thing about little Abe, he had a 
great love for books. He went to school only long enough 
to learn to read and write, but he borrowed and read all the 
books he could get. When he found he could not go to 
school he studied at home. He had no slate or pencil, so he 
studied arithmetic by the light of the kitchen fire, working out 



x88 HO 11^ LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT 

the problems on the back of a wooden fire shovel. When 
this was full he would scrape it off smooth and begin again. 
In this way the boy got to be the best scholar in all the 
country he lived in. How many of you would have worked 
as hard as he did to get an education ? Yet it was this kind 
of work that made him President. 

Lincoln knew how to make use of his learning. He was 

always a good talker, and in time he grew to be one of the 

best public speakers of his times. He became 

inco n sen ^^ ^^jj kuown and so well respected that at 

to Congress ^ 

length he was sent to Congress. Lincoln did 
not believe that slavery was a good thing for the country, and 
was sure it was a wrong thing in itself So he joined the 
Republican Party, which had just been formed. 

There was another fine speaker in Illinois named Douglas 
who had different ideas about slavery from* Lincoln and was 
a member of the Democratic Party. Lincoln and Douglas 
went about Illinois making speeches to the people, and great 
crowds came to hear them, for they \vere two of the best 
speakers in the country. Everywhere people were talking 
about Lincoln and Douglas and saying what smart men 
they were. 

In i860 came the time when a new President was to be 
chosen, and out of all the political leaders of the country these 
two men from' far-west Illinois were selected — Douglas by 
those who were in favor of slavery and Lincoln by those who 
opposed slavery. When election day came round and the 
votes were counted, Abraham Lincoln, the rail splitter, was 
found to be elected President of the United States. 

The people of the South were in a terrible state of mind 
when they found that a Republican, a man opposed to slavery, 
was elected President. They could not tell what would take 
place. The Abolitionists were in power and might pass laws 



NOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT 



189 



that would rob them of all their slaves. For years they had 

been fighting the North in Congress — fighting by words, I 

mean. Now they determined to leave the Union, and to fight 

with swords and guns if the North would not let them go in 

peace. One by one the Southern States passed resolutions to 

go out of the Union. And on all sides they collected powder 

and balls and other implements of war, for their leaders felt 

sure they would have 

to fight But Lincoln 

hoped the states 

would not quarrel. 

He begged them not 

to. But if they did 

it was his duty to do 

what the people had 

put him there for. 

He had been elected 

President of the 

United States, and 

he must do all he 

could to keep these 

states united. 

It was on the 
4th of March, 1861, 
that Abraham Lin- 
coln became Presi- 
dent. By the middle of April the North and South were at 
war. Both sides had their soldiers in the field and fighting 
had begun. The South wanted to take Washington, and the 
North to keep it, and soon a fierce battle was fought at a place 
called Bull Run, a few miles south of Washine^ton. 

The Southern States formed a Union of their own, which 
was called the Southern Confederacy. They chose Richmond, 




IN SEARCH OF THE NORTH POLE 

This monument marks the farthest point north reached by 

Lieutenant Lockwood of the Greely Expedition, 1881-83 



I90 HOW LINCOLN BECAME PRESIDENT 

the capital of Virginia, for the capital of the Confedeiacy, and 
chose Jefferson Davis for their President. Davis had fought 
bravely as a soldier at the battle of Buena Vista, in Mexico. 
And he had been long in Congress, where he showed himself 
an able lawmaker. So the South chose him as their best 
man for President. 

The war was half over before President Lincoln did any- 
thing about slavery. He was there to save the Union, not to 
free the slaves. But the time came when he found that free- 
ing the slaves would help him in saving the 
reeing e Union. When this time came — it was on the 

Slaves 

I St of January, 1863, — he declared that all the 
slaves should be free. It was a great thing for this country, 
for it was clear that there could be no peace while slavery 
remained. 

But the war went on more fiercely than ever, and it was 
not until April, 1865, that it came to an end. The South was 
not able to light any longer and had to give up, and the 
Union was saved. It was saved without slavery, which was 
a very good thing for both North and South, as we have since 
found out. 

But good and true Abraham Lincoln did not live to learn 
what the country gained by the war, for just after it ended he 
was killed by a wicked and foolish man, who thought he would 
avenge the South by shooting the President. 

It was a terrible deed. The whole country mourned for 
its noblest man, slain in the hour of victory. The South as 
well as ijie North suffered by his death, for he was too just a 
man to oppress the vanquished, and in him all the people. 
North and South, lost their best and ablest friend. 



R<'t=' 



'^f 




PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES FROM 1877 TO 19C 



CHAPTER XXII 

The Great Civil War 

I HAVE no doubt that some 

of the young folks who read this 

book will want to hear the story of 

the great war that was spoken of in 

the last chapter. Some of the boys 

'ill, at any rate. The girls do not 

care so much about war, and I 

am glad of this, for I think the 

world would be much better off 

if there were no wars. 

Well, I suppose I shall 
have to tell the boys something 
about it. The girls can skip it, 
if they wish. To tell the whole 
story of our Civil War would 
take a book five times as large as this, so all I can do is to 
draw a sort of outline map of it. A civil war, you should 
know, means a war within a nation, where part of a people 
fights against the other part. A war between two nations is 
called a foreign war. 

When our Civil War broke out we had thirty-three states 
— we have forty-five to-day. Eleven of these states tried to 
leave the Union and twenty-two remained, so that the Union 
states were two to one against the non-Lhiion. But the Union 
states had more than twice the people and had ten times the 
wealth, so that, as you may see, the war was a one-sided 

191 




192 THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 

affair. It was nearly all fought in the South, whose people 
suffered greatly for their attempt to leave the Union. Many 
of them lost all they had and became very poor. 

There were three fields or regions in which this war took 
place. One of these was a narrow region, lying between 
Washington and Richmond, the two capital cities. But small 
as it was, here the greatest battles were fought. Both sides 
were fighting fiercely to save their capitals. 

The second region of the war was in the West. This 
was a vast region, extending from Kentucky and Missouri 
down to the Gulf of Mexico. Here there were many long, 
weary marches and much hard fighting and great loss of life. 
The third region was on the ocean and rivers, where iron-clad 
ships first met in battle, and where some famous combats 
took place. 

Over these three regions a million and more of men 

struggled for years, fighting with rifle and cannon, with sword 

and bayonet, killing and wounding one another and causing 

no end of misery in all parts of the land. For the people at 

home suffered as much as the men on the 

e erroso battle-field, and many mothers and sisters were 

heart-broken when word came to them that 

their dear sons or brothers had been shot down on the field 

of blood. War is the most terrible thing upon the earth, 

though men try to make it look like a pleasant show with 

their banners and trumpets and drums. 

As soon as the news of the war came there was a great 
coming and^going of soldiers, and beating of drums, and flut- 
tering of banners, and making of speeches, and thousands 
marched away, some to Washington and some to Richmond, 
and many more to the strongholds of the West. Mothers 
wept as they bade good-by to their sons, whom they might 
never see again. And many of the soldier-boys had sad 



THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 



193 



hearts under their brave faces. Soon hundreds of these poor 
fellows w^ere falling dead and wounded on fields of battle, and 
then their people at home had good reason to weep and mourn. 
I have told you about the battle of Bull Run, south of 
Washington, the first great battle of the war. Here the 
Southern army gained the victory, and the people of the South 




CUSHING'S LAST SHOT 

In the fierce struggle at Gettysburg, Cushing's Battery was overwhelmed by the Confederate 

General Armistead. Gushing fired his gun as he fell mortally wounded 

were full of joy. But Congress now called for half a million 
of men and voted half a billion of dollars. Both sides saw 
that they had a great war before them. 

Bull Run was the only severe battle in 1861, but in 1862 
both the North and the South had large armies, and there was 
much hard fighting in the East and the West. 



194 



THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 



I must tell you first of the fighting in Virginia. General 
George B. McClellan was in command of the Union army 
there. He led it down close to Richmond, which he hoped 
to capture. There was a sharp fight at a place called Fair 
Oaks, where General Joseph Johnston, the Confederate general, 
was wounded. General Robert E. Lee took his place. They 
could not have picked out a better man, for he proved him- 
self to be one of the greatest soldiers of modern times. 

The Confederates had another fine general named 
Thomas J. Jackson. He was called "Stonewall" Jackson, 

because, in the battle of Bull 
Run, some one had said : 

" Look at Jackson ! There 
he stands like a stone wall ! " 

General Lee and Stonewall 
Jackson were not the men to keep 
quiet. In a short time they drove 
McClellan back after a hard fight 
lasting a whole week, and then 
made a sudden march to the 
north. Here was another Union 
army, on the old battle-field of 
Bull Run. A dreadful battle 
followed ; men fell by thousands ; in the end the Union army 
was defeated and forced back towards Washington. 

General Lee knew that he could not take Washington, 
so he marched away north, waded his men across the Potomac 
River, and entered the state of Maryland. This was a slave 
state and he hoped many of the people would join his army. 
But the farmers of Maryland loved the Union too well for 
that, so General Lee got very few of them in his ranks. 

Then he went west, followed by General McClellan, and 
at a place called Antietam the two armies met and there was 




THOMAS J. (STONEWALL) JACKSON 



THE GREAT CIVIL WAR ,g^ 

fought the bloodiest battle of the war. They kept at it all 
day long and neither side seemed beaten. But that night 
General Lee and his men waded back across the Potomac 
into Virginia, leaving McClellan master of the field. There 
was one more terrible battle in Virginia that year, in which 
General Burnside, who now commanded the Union army, 




UNITED STATES MILITARY TELEGRAPH WAGON 

tried to take the city of Fredericksburg, but was defeated 
and his men driven back with a dreadful loss of life. 

Both armies now rested untilthe spring of 1863, and 
then another desperate battle was fought. General Hooker 
had taken General Burnside's place, and thought he also 
must fight a battle, but he did not care to try Fredericksburg 



196 THE GREAl CIVIL WAR 

as Burnside had done, so he marched up the river and crossed 
it into a rough and wild country known as the Wilderness. 

General Lee hurried there to meet him and the two 
armies came together at a place called Chancellorsville. They 
fought in the wild woods, where the trees in some places 
were so thick that the men could not see one another. But 
Stonewall Jackson marched to the left through the woods and 
made a sudden attack on the right wing of the Union army. 

This part of the army was taken by surprise and driven 

back. Hooker's men fought all that day and the next, but 

they could not recover from their surprise and 

wall Jackson ^^^^' ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^'^^ ^^^X ^^^ ^^ cross the river 
back again. General Lee had won another 
great victory. But Stonewall Jackson was wounded and soon 
died, and Lee would rather have lost the battle than to lose 
this famous general. 

Do you not think the North had a right to feel very 
much out of heart by this time ? The war had gone on for 
two years, and the Union army had been defeated in all the 
great battles fought in Virginia. The only victory won was 
that at Antietam in Maryland. They had been beaten at the 
two battles of Bull Run, the seven days' fight at Richmond, 
and the battles of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, while 
the battle of Antietam had been won with great loss of life. 

But there was soon to be a victory that would make up 
for more than one defeat. Shortly after the fight at Chancel- 
lorsville General Lee broke camp and marched north with the 
greatest speed. The Union army followed as fast as it could 
march, for there was danger of Baltimore or even Philadelphia 
being taken. Both armies kept on until they reached the 
town of Gettysburg, in western Pennsylvania. Here was 
fought the greatest battle of the war. It lasted for three days, 
the 1st, 2d and 3d of July, 1863. 



THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 

197 

The loss of life on both sides was dreadful. But the 
Confcaerates lost the most men and lost the battle beside. 
They tried in vain to break through the Union lines, and in 
the end they were forced to retreat. On the 4th of July Gen- 
eral Lee sadly began his backward march, and the telegraph 
wires earned all through the North the tidings of a great 




FORT MOULTRIE, CHARLESTON, WTH FORT SUMTER m THE DISTANCE 



before President Lincoln had proclaimed the freedom of the 
slaves, and the armies ^vere now fighting to make his word 

r i fi Jr'\ '"■ *'' ''^'^ '^l^^" '"'" 'he ranks, that they 
might fight for their own liberty. ^ 

th. l7f '*" w^ J"'.' ''""' "'"' "^-^ P^«P'^ «f 'he North bore 
tne defeats in Virginia better than you would think. They 



198 



THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 



had good reason to, for while they had been losing battles in 
the East they had been winning battles in the West. So one 
helped to make up for the other. If you will follow me now 
to the West we will see what was taking place there. 

The North did not have to change its generals as often 
in the West as in the East, for it soon got a good one, whom 







A RAILROAD BATTERY 



it was wise enough to hold on to. This was General Ulysses 
S. Grant, one of the greatest generals of the world's histor}^ 
Grant was only a captain at first. Then he was made a 
colonel, and was soon raised to the rank of general. He met 
the Confederates first at Belmont, Missouri. Here he was 
defeated and had to take his men aboard river-boats to get 
them away. That was his first and nearly his last defeat. 




THE GREAT CIVIL WAR igg 

The Confederates had built two strong forts in Kentucky 
which they named Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. General 
Grant marched against them with an army and Commodore 
Foote steamed against them with a fleet of iron-clad steam- 
boats. Fort Henry was taken by the fleet before Grant could 
get to it. Then he marched across country to Fort DOnel- 
son, on the Cumberland River. He attacked this fort so 
fiercely that the Confederates tried to get out of it but did not 

succeed. Then they proposed , _._. 

to surrender, and asked him 
what terms he would give 
them. 

" No terms except an 
immediate and unconditional 
surrender," he said. " I pro- 
pose to move immediately on 
your works." 

This settled the matter. 
They surrendered — fifteen 
thousand in all. After that 
many said that V. S. Grant 
stood for "Unconditional 
Surrender" Grant. 

I cannot tell you about 
all the fights that took place 
in the West, but there was a terrible battle at a place called 
Pittsburg Landing, which lasted two days, and in which 
Grant came very near being defeated. There was a severe 
one at Murfreesboro on the last day of the year, and another 
three days afterwards. Grant was not here, but Bragg, the 
Confederate General, was defeated. 

The Confederates had an important stronghold on the 
Mississippi River at the city of Vicksburg, where they had 





TOMB OF U. S. GRANT, NEW YORK 



200 THE GREAT CIVIL WAR 

many forts and a large number of cannon. General Sherman 
tried to capture these forts but was driven back. Then 
General Grant tried it and found it a very hard task. 

The country was all swamp and creeks which no army 

could get through, so Grant at last marched south on the 

other side of the river, and then crossed over and marched 

north again. He had to fight every step of his way, and to 

live on the food his men could carry, for he had 

e lege o ^^^ loose from the North. But he soon reached 

VicksDurg 

the city and began a long siege. The Con- 
federates held out until all their food was gone, and until 
they had eaten up nearly all their horses and mules. Then 
they surrendered. Twenty-seven thousand men were taken 
prisoners. 

This took place on the 4th of July, 1863, the same day 
that General Lee marched away from the field at Gettysburg. 
That was one of the greatest Fourths of July this country had 
ever seen, for with it the last chance of the South was lost, 
Fighting kept on for two years more, but they would have 
been wiser to give up then and save all the death and misery 
that came to them afterwards. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



War on Sea and Land 




ADMIRAL DAVID G. FARRAGUT 
Hero of Mobile Bay 



I HAVE told you part of the 
story of how our people fought on 
land. Now suppose w^e take a look 
at the water, and see how they fought 
there. Have any of you heard of the 
wonderful battle between the 
"Monitor" and the " Merrimac " ? 
If you have you will be sure to 
remember it, for it is one of the 
strangest stories in the history of 
war. In the lower part of Chesa- 
peake Bay is what I may call 2 
pocket of water named Hampton Roads, into which the 
James River flows. Here, in the month of March, 1862, lay 
a fleet of war vessels. These were not the kind of ships-of- 
war which we see now-a-days. They were wooden vessels, 
such as were used in former wars, but which would be of no 
more use than floating logs against the sea-monsters of to-day. 
Something strange was soon to happen to these proud 
ships. On the 8th of March there came into the waters of the 
bay a very odd looking craft. It was a ship, but instead of a 
deck it had a sloping roof made of iron bars. 
It looked something like a house gone adrift, ^n^ron-roofed 
I fancy the people in the wooden ships must 
have been a little scared when they saw it coming, for they 
had never seen a war-vessel with an iron roof before. 

201 



202 WAJ? ON SEA AND LAND 

They might well be scared, for they soon found that their 
cannon were of no more use than pea-shooters against this 
queer craft. The cannon-balls bounded off from, her sides like 
so many peas. On came the iron monster and struck one of 
the ships with her iron beak, tearing a great hole in its side. 
Down into the waters sunk the gallant ship, with all on board. 
And there it lay with its flag flying like a flag above a grave. 
Another ship, the "Congress," was driven on the mud and 
had to give up the fight. 

There were three more ships in the fleet, but it was now 
near night, and so the "Merrimac," as the iron monster was 
called, steamed away. Her captain thought it would be an 
easy thing to settle with them the next morning, and very 
likely the people on them did not sleep well that night, for they 
could not forget what had happened to the " Congress " and 
the "Cumberland," and felt sure their turn was to come next. 

But, as the old saying goes, "There is many a slip 
between cup and lip." The "Merrimac" was to learn the 
truth of this. For when she came grimly out the next day, 
expecting to sink the rest of the fleet and then steam up to the 
city of Washington and perhaps burn that, her 
of Craft captain found before him the queerest thing in 

the shape of a ship he had ever seen. It was 
an iron vessel that looked like "a cheese box on a raft." All 
that could be seen was a flat deck that came just above the 
water, and above this a round tower of iron, out of which 
peeped two monsters of cannon. 

This strange vessel had come into Hampton Roads dur- 
ing the night, and there jt lay ready to do battle for the Union. 
It was a new style of war-ship that had been built in New 
York and was called the " Monitor." 

The "Merrimac" soon had enough to keep herself busy, 
and was forced to let the wooden fleet alone. For four long 



IVA/? ON SEA AND LAND 



203 



hours these two iron monsters battered each other with cannon 
balls. Such a fight had never been seen before. It was the 
first time two ironclad ships had met in war. 




I cannot say that 
either ship was hurt 
much. The balls could 
not get through the 
iron bars and plates and 
glanced oft" into the water. 
But the "Merrimac" got 
the worst of it, and in 
the end she turned and hurried back to Norfolk, from which 
place she had come. The ''Monitor" waited for her, but she 
never came out again. Soon afterwards the Confederates left 



DEATH OF GENERAL POLK 
Killed at Kenesaw Mountain, 7864 



204 l^VAJ^ ON SEA AND LAND 

Norfolk and sunk their iron ship, and that was the last of 
the " Merrimac." 

When the news of this wonderful sea-fight got to Europe 
the kings and ministers of war read it with alarm. They saw 
they had something to do. Their wooden war-vessels were 
out of date, and they got to work in a hurry to build iron- 
clad ships. To-day all the great nations of the earth have 
fleets of steel-covered ships-of-war, and the United States 
has some of the best and strongest of this kind of ships. 

All through the war there were battles of iron-clads. On 
the western rivers steamboats were plated with iron and 
attacked the forts on shore. And along the coast iron-clad 
vessels helped the wooden ships to blockade the ports of the 
South. More vessels like the "Monitor" were built in the 
North, and a number somewhat like the "Merrimac" were 
built in the South. I cannot say that any of them did much 
good either North or South. 

One of the greatest naval battles was fought in the Bay 

of Mobile, on the Gulf of Mexico. Here there were some 

strong forts and a powerful iron-clad ship. Admiral Farragut 

sailed into the bay with a fleet of wooden ships 

.-^.-.f^o and several iron vessels like the "Monitor." 

Mobile Bay 

When he went past the forts he stood in the 
rigging of his ship, with his spy-glass in his hand. He did 
not seem to care anything for cannon-balls. He took the forts, 
and since then Farragut has been one of our great heroes. 

There was one Confederate privateer, the "Alabama," 
which caused terrible loss to the merchants of the North. It 
took in all sixty-five vessels, which were set on fire and 
burned. In June. 1864, the "Alabama" was met near the 
coast of France by the frigate " Kearsarge," and a furious 
battle took place. For two hours they fought, and then the 
"Alabama" sagged down into the water and sank to the 



WAJ? ON SEA AND LAND 



20: 



bottom of the sea. She had done much harm to the North, 
but her career was at an end. 

Now let us turn back to the war on land and see what 
was going on there. I have told you the story of the fighting 
up to the great 4th of July, 1 863, when Vicksburg surrendered 
to General Grant and General Lee marched away from Gettys- 
burg. That is where we dropped the threads which we have 
now to take up again. 

After Grant had taken Vicksburg and opened the Missis- 
sippi from St. Louis to its mouth, he set out for the town of 




LIBBY PRISON IN 1865 WHERE UNION SOLDIERS TAKEN IN WAR WERE DETAINED 

Chattanooga, which is in Tennessee just north of Georgia. 
Here there had been a great battle in which the Confederate 
army won the victory, and the Union troops were shut up in 
Chattanooga with very little to eat. 

Grant was not there long before there came a change. 
General Bragg, the Confederate commander, had his army on 
the summits of two mountains named Lookout Mountain and 
Missionary iRidge. These were defended by strong forts. 
But the Union troops charged up the mountain sides in the 
face of the fire of rifles and cannon and soon had possession 
of the forts. General Bragg' s army was defeated with great 



2o6 IVAR ON SEA AND LAND 

loss. This was one of the most brilliant victories of the war. 
The battle of Lookout Mountain has been called "the battle 
above the clouds." 

Everybody now saw that General Grant was much the 

best general on the Union side, and President Lincoln made 

him commander-in-chief of all the armies in the 

an , 0"!= field. Grant at once laid his plans to have the 

mander=in=ChieT ^ 

armies all work together. General Sherman 
was left in command of the army of the West and Grant 
came to Virginia to fight General Lee. 

In the green month of May, 1864, all the armies were 
set in motion, and North and South came together for the 
last great struggle of the war. 

Grant led his men into the Wilderness where General 
Hooker and his army had been sadly defeated the year before. 
Lee was there to meet him, and a great battle was fought in 
the depth of the woods and thickets. It lasted two whole 
days, but neither side won. 

Then Grant marched towards Richmond and Lee hurried 
down to head him off. Several hard battles were fought, the 
last being at Cold Harbor, near Richmond. Here the Union 
army lost terribly. Ten thousand men were killed and 
wounded, while the Confederates, who were behind strong 
earthworks, lost only a thousand. 

General Grant saw he could not reach Richmond that 
way, so he crossed the James River and began a siege of 
Petersburg and Richmond. This siege lasted nine months, 
both sides digging instead of fighting till great heaps of earth 
were thrown up, on whose tops were hundreds of cannon. 

General Grant kept his men very busy, as you may see. 
But General Sherman's men were just as busy. He marched 
south from Chattanooga, and fought battle after battle until 
he had gone far into Georgia and captured the important city 



WAJ? ON SEA AND LAND 



207 



of Atlanta. General Hood, the Confederate commander, then 
made a rapid march to Tennessee, thinking that Sherman 
would follow him. But Sherman did not move. The brave 
General Thomas was there to take care of Hood and his army. 




THE DESPERATE EXTREMITY OF THE CONFEDERATES AT THE END OF THE CIVIL WAR 

"Let him go; he couldn't please me better," said 
Sherman. 

What Sherman did was to cut loose from the railroads 
and telegraphs and march his whole army into the centre of 
Georgia. For a whole month the people of the North heard 
nothing of him. His sixty thousand men might be starving 



2oS JVA/? ON SEA AND LAND 

for food, or might all be killed, so far as was known. It was 
November when they started and it was near Christmas when 
they were heard of again. 

They had lived on the country and destroyed railroads 
and stores, and at length they came to the sea at the city of 
Savannah. Three daring scouts made their way in a boat 
down the river by night and brought to the fleet the first 
news of Sherman's march. No doubt you have heard the 
song "Marching through Georgia." That was written to 
describe Sherman's famous march. 

The South was now getting weaker and weaker, and 
most men saw that the war. was near its end. It came to an 
end in April, 1865. Grant kept moving South till he got 
round the Confederate earthworks at Petersburg, and Lee was 
forced to leave Richmond in great haste. 

The Union army followed as fast as it could march, and 

the cavalry rode on until it was ahead of the Confederates. 

Then General Lee saw that he was surrounded by an army 

far stronger than his own. He could fight no 

Surrender of , t t • i j_ j t- 

^ ,, lony"er. His men were nearly starved. lo 

General Lee o J 

fight would be to have them all killed. So on 
the 9th of April he gave up his sword to General Grant, and 
the long and bloody war was at an end. 

No one was gladder of this than President Lincoln, who 
had done so much to bring it about. Poor man ! five days 
afterwards he was shot in a theatre at Washington by an actor 
named John Wilkes Booth. 

Booth was followed and killed, but his death could not 
bring back to life the murdered President, whom the people 
loved so warmly that they mourned for him as if he had been, 
like Washington, the Father of his Country. It was a terrible 
crime, and it turned the joy which the people felt, at the end 
of the war, into the deepest sorrow and grief 



CHAPTER XXIV 



The Waste of War and the Wealth of 

Peace 

^ _. -s^"- -- LET us suppose 

, that the history of the 
whole world is spread 
out before us like a 
picture, and that we are 
^ looking down on it. 
What will we see ? 
Well, w^e will see places 
where a terrible storm 
seems to have swept 
over the picture, and 
left only darkness and 
ruin in its track. And 
we will see other places 
where the sun seems 
to have poured down its bright beams, and all is clear and 
bright and beautiful. The dark places are those of war ; the 
bright places are those of peace. All through history there 
have been times when men have gone out to kill and burn 
and do all the harm they could ; and there have been other 
times when they stayed at home to work, and build up what 
war had cast down, and bring plenty and happiness to the 
nations. 

In the picture of our own history we see such dark and 
bright places. And the darkest of them all is the terrible 

2C9 




4j9.Jp^ 



ON THE PICKET LINE 



2IO 



WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 



Civil War, the story of which you have just read. For in this 
war our people fought against and killed one another, and all 
the harm was done at home, instead of in foreign lands. The 
war was a dreadful one. Hundreds of thousands of our 
people were killed or wounded, 
and the ground in hundreds of 
places was red with blood. 
Houses, barns and facto- 
ries were burned, railroads 
were torn up, ships were 
sunk, growing crops were 
trampled into the earth. 
And last of 
all came that __ 

horrid murder 
of our good 
and great Pres- 
ident Lincoln, 
one of the best 
and noblest 
men who ever 
sat in the presi- 
dential chair. 
Such is war — 
the most fright- 
ful thing we 
can think of or 
talk about. 

Some of my young friends may like to play soldier; but if 
they should grow up and get to be real soldiers they would 
find out what war means. Now, if we look again at the 
picture of our history, we shall see a great, bright space of 
peace following the dark space of the Civil War. That is what 




TELLING THE STORY OF THE WAR 



WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 



211 



I wish to tell you about no\\^ — the reign of peace, when every- 
body was busy at work in building up what had been torn 
down by the red hand of war, and our country grew faster 



than it had ever grown before. 



There is one thing I must say here. I have told you 
that slavery was the cause of the war. If there had been no 




A LEGISLATURE OF A SOUTHERN STATE 'WITH NEGRO MEMBERS 

At close of the Civil War, Northern men moved into the South and were called carpet-baggers. Under 
their influence, negroes were elected to the Legislature and large sums of money were squandered 

slaves in the country there would have been no war. And 
the one good thing the war did for us was to get rid of the 
slaves. President Lincoln declared that all the slaves should 
be free, and since that time there has not been a slave in the 
land. 



So we can never have a war for that cause again. 



14 



212 WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 

When the war was done, the soldiers marched back to 
their homes. Their old battle-flags, rent and torn by bullets, 
were put away as valued treasures ; their rusty rifles, which 
had killed thousands of men, were given back to the govern- 
ment ; they took up their axes, they went into the fields with 
their ploughs, they entered the workshops with their tools, 
and soon they were all at Avork again, as if they had never 
seen a field of battle. 

This took place long before any of my young readers 
were born. But there are many old soldiers living who took 
part in it, and when you see the veterans of the Grand Army 
of the Republic, marching with their ragged 
Veterans**"'^ flags and battle-scarred faces, it may bring to 
you some vision of what they have seen, and 
make you think of the fallen comrades they left behind, dead 
or bleeding upon the battle-field. 

During your short lives there has been no war which 
came near to us in our homes. The angel of peace has spread 
her white wings over our land, and plenty and prosperity 
have been the rule. None of our young folks have known 
what it is for an army of soldiers to march past their homes, 
destroying and burning, and leaving ashes and ruins where 
there had been happy homes and fertile fields. But in our 
past history this happened to many as young as you, and 
they were glad that their lives were left them, after everything 
else was gone. 

Let us put the thought of war out of our minds, and go 
on to see what took place under the blessed reign of peace. The 
first thing of which I shall tell you was one of the most won- 
derful of all. I have given you the story of Professor Morse 
and the first telegraph line. You know how the telegraph 
wires spread over the country until they were many thousands 
of miles in length. In the year after the war ended a still 



WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 213 

greater thing was done. A telegraph cable was laid under 
the ocean from Europe to America. This had been done 
before, but it had proved a failure. The new cable was a 
success, and since then a man in London has been able to 
talk with a man in New York as if he were not a hundred 
yards away. Of course, I do not mean with his voice, but 
with the click of the telegraph instrument. 

The year after that a great addition was made to the 
United States. There was a large region in the north, known 
as Russian America, which Russia offered to sell to this coun- 
try for seven million dollars. Many people 
talked about this as their forefathers had done , * , ^\^ 

of Alaska 

about the Louisiana purchase. They said that 
it was a land of ice and snow, that Russia wanted to get rid 
of it, and that it would be of no use to anybody. But it was 
bought for all that, and it has proven a very good bargain. 

This country we now call Alaska. We get there all the 
sealskins from which the rich and warm cloaks of the ladies 
are made. And many of the canned salmon, which some of 
you think very good food, come from Alaska. That country 
is rich in furs and fish and timber ; and that is not all, for it is 
rich in gold. Millions of dollars worth of gold are obtained 
there every year. It has been something like California, whose 
gold was not found till Americans got there to dig. 

These are not the only things that took place in the 
years after the war. Railroads were being built in all direc- 
tions. East and west, north and south, they went, and travel 
became easier than it had been before. The greatest thing 
done in this way was the building of a railroad across the 
mountains and the plains to San Francisco, on the far Pacific 
coast, three thousand miles away from the Atlantic shores. 
Before that time men who wanted to go to California had to 
drag along over thousands of miles in slow wagon trains and 



214 



WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 



spend weeks and months on the road. Now they could go 
there in less than a week. It was the longest railroad that 
the world had ever seen, up to that time. 

While all this was going on, people were coming to this 
country in great multitudes, crossing the ocean to find new 
homes in our happy land. They did not have to come in 
slow sailing ships as in former times, but were brought here 
in swift steamships, that crossed the seas as fast as the iron 

horse crossed the land. All 

.^ these new people went to work, 

"i: ^ some in the cities and some in 

the country, and they all 

helped to make our nation 

rich and powerful. 

But you must not think 
that everything went well, 
and that we had no dark 
days. Every country has 
its troubles, even in times 

WESTERN RAILROAD IN . 

EARLIER DAYS of pcacc. War IS not the 

only trouble. Great fires break out, storms 
' ^^f^^ ^^M:- y^" sweep over the land, earthquakes shake down 
cities, and many other disasters take place. 
Of all these things, fire, when it gets beyond con- 
trol, is the most terrible ; and it is of a frightful fire that I 
wish to speak. 

About the year 1831 a small fort stood near the shore of 
Lake Michigan, and around this a few pioneer families had 
built their homes, which were only rude log houses. In 
1 87 1, forty years afterwards, the fort and the huts had long 
been gone and a large city stood at that place. Its growth 
had been wonderful. Only forty years old and already one 
of the great cities of the country. This was the famous city 





KING PHILIP'S WAR-DEATH OF THE KING 




DARING DESERTION Or JOHN CAMPE 

from t!ie American to the English ranks, for the purpose of associating himself with the traitor Benedict Arnold, seizing 
him and getting him alive into the hands of the Americans. 



WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 215 

of Chicago, which has grown more rapidly than any other 
great city ever known. 

One night in October a dreadful thing took place in this 
city. A cow kicked over a lamp in a stable. The straw on 
the floor took fire, and in a minute the blaze shot up into the 
air. The people ran for water, but they were too slow, and 
in a few minutes the whole stable was in flames. You may 



THE BURNING OF CHICAGO IN 1871 



think that this was not of much account, but there happened 
to be a gale of wind, and soon great blazing fragments were 
flying through the air and falling on roofs squares away. It 
was not long before there was a terrible conflagration. 

Chicago at that time was mostly built of wood, and the 
fire spread until it looked as if the whole great city would 
be burnt to ashes. For two days it kept on burning until the 



2i6 WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 

richest part of the city had gone up in smoke and flame. 
Many people were burned to death in the streets and two 
hundred milHon dollars worth of property was destroyed. It 
was the most frightful fire of modern times. But Americans 
do not stop for fire or water. The city was built up again, 
far handsomer than before, and it is now one of the greatest 
cities, not only of this country, but of the world. 

This was not the only disaster which came upon the 
country. In 1886 there was a frightful earthquake in South 
Carolina, that shook down a great part of the city of Charles- 
ton. And in 1889 there was a terrible flood that swept away 
the young city of Johnstown, in Pennsylvania, and drowned 
more than two thousand people. And there were tornadoes, 
or wind storms, in the west that blew down whole towns as 
you might blow down a house of cardboard with 

I-* o f*f h o lift Ic^^ 

Floods Etc ' your breath. And there were great strikes and 
riots that were almost like war, and various 
other troubles. But all these could not stop the growth of 
the country. Every year it became richer. New people came, 
new factories were built, new fields were farmed, and the 
United States seemed like a great hive of industry, and its 
people like so many bees, working away, day by day, and 
gathering wealth as bees gather honey. 

It not only got many of the old articles of wealth, but it 
got many new ones also. Never was there a country with so 
many inventors, and never were there more wonderful inven- 
tions. I have told you about some of our inventors ; I shall 
have to sp^ak of some more of them. There were hundreds of 
men busily at work at inventing new machines and tools, new 
things to help everybody — the farmer, the merchant, the 
workman in the factory, and the cook in the kitchen. It got 
so that there was not much done by hand, as in old times, 
but nearly everything was done by machine. 



WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 



217 



Some of these inventions were very wonderful. There 
was the telephone, or talking telegraph, which many of you 
may have used yourselves. That was not known before 
1876; but people now wonder how they ever got along with- 
out it. It is certainly very nice, when you have to talk with 
somebody a mile or a hundred miles away, to ring them up 
and talk with them over the telephone wire as easily as if you 

were talking with some one in 

the next room. The telephone, 

as I suppose you know, works 

r ; 




SHOP IN WHICH THE FIRST MORSE TELEGRAPH INSTRUMENT WAS CONSTRUCTED 
FOR EXHIBITION BEFORE CONGRESS 

by electricity. It is only another form of the telegraph. 
Nearly all the remarkable inventions of late times have had 
something to do with electricity. And the greatest of the 
electrical inventors is Thomas A. Edison, a man who has 
been talked about so much that I really think more people 
must know his name than that of the President of the United 
States. 



2i8 WASTE OF WAR AND WEALTH OF PEACE 

Edison went into business when he was only twelve 
years old, selling newspapers and other things on the cars, 
and he was so smart and did so well that he was able to send 
his parents five hundred dollars a year. When he was six- 
teen he saved the child of a station-master from being: run 
over by a locomotive, and the father was so grateful that he 
taught him how to telegraph. He was so quick and smart 
that he got to be one of the best telegraph operators in the 
United States. 

After he grew up Edison began to invent. He worked 

out a plan by which he could send two messages at once over 

one wire. He kept at this till he could send sixteen messages 

over a wire, eight one way and eight the other. 

of Edison ^^ ^^^^ ^ ^■'^^' ^^^^ ^^^^ invented the telephone, 

but Edison took it up and made great improve- 
ments in it. And he worked away for years on the electric 
light, which some one else had invented. He not only made 
inventions of his own, but he improved those of others. The 
most wonderful of all Edison's inventions is the phonograph, 
or talking-box. I think all of you must have seen and 
heard this magical instrument. 

You know some of the other things which have been 
done by the aid of electricity. How rails have been laid and 
cars shoot smoothly and swiftly along on them, moved by 
something which nobody can see, unless the trolley wheel 
should happen to slip, when one can see something like a 
little lightning flash. That is the flash of the electricity in 
the wire. 

Such are some of the inventions which have been made 
in recent times. If you ask for more I might name the steam 
plow, and the typewriter, and the printing machine, and the 
bicycle, and a hundred others. But they are too many for 
me to say anything about, so I shall have to stop right here. 



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CHAPTER XXV 



The Marvels of Invention 



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T is not a pleasant thing to go hungry for twenty- 
four hours and to go many days without half 
enough to eat. I think all my readers will agree 
with me in this. I fancy none of you would like 
to find an empty table before you when the din- 
ner bell rings. But this is a thing that has happened to many 
inventors, and one of these was Samuel F. B. Morse, to 
whose genius we owe the electric telegraph. 

You know about the invention of the steamboat, the loco- 
motive, the cotton-gin and various other early inventions ; 
but there have been many later inventions, and one of the 
most important of these is the telegraph, which tells us every 
day what is taking place over the whole world. 

Professor Morse was a New York artist who studied 
painting in Europe, and in the year 1832 took passage home 
in the ship " Sully." One day a talk went on in the cabin of 
the ship. Dr. Jackson, one of the passengers, told how some 
persons in Paris had sent an electric current through several 
miles of wire in less than a second of time. 

219 



»20 



THE MARVELS OF INVENTION 



" If that is the case," said Morse, "why could not words 
and sentences be sent in the same way?" 

"That's a good idea. It would be a great thing if we could 
send news as fast as lightning," said one of the passengers. 
"Why can't we?" said Morse, "I think we can do it." 

Very likely the rest 
of the passengers soon 
forgot all about that 
conversation, but 
Morse did not. During 
the remainder of the 
voyage he was very 
quiet and kept much 
to himself He was 
thinking over what he 
had heard. Before the 
ship had reached New 
York he had worked 
plan of telegraph- 




out a 



mg. 



He proposed to carry the 

wire in tubes underground, and 

to use an alphabet of dots and 

dashes, the same that is used by 

telegraphers to-day. 

When he went on shore 
Morse said to the captain : " Cap- 
tain, if you should hear of the tele- 
graph one of these days as the wonder of the world, remember 
that the discovery was made on board the good ship 'Sully.' " 
" If I can make it go ten miles without stopping, I can 
make it go round the world," he said to a passenger. 

But it is easier to think out a thing than to put it in prac- 
tice. Poor Morse was more than ten years in working out his 



•V'- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN DRAWS LIGHT 
NING FROM THE CLOUDS 



THE MARVELS OF INVENTION 221 

plans and getting people to help him in them. He got out of 
money and was near starving, but he kept at it. After three 
years he managed to send a message through seventeen hun- 
dred feet of wire. He could read it, but his friends could 
not, and no one was ready to put money in such a scheme. 
They looked at it as a toy to amuse children. Then he went 
to Europe and tried to get money there, but he found the 
people there as hard to convince as those in America. 

" No one is in such a hurry for news as all that," they 
said. "People would rather get their news in ^^^^^^^^ 
the good old way. Your wires work, Mr. in"" Europe 
Morse, but it would take a great deal of money 
to lay miles of them underground, and we are not going to 
take such chances as that with our money." 

Mr. Morse next tried to get Congress to grant him a sum 
of money. He wanted to build a wire from Baltimore to 
Washington and show how it would work. But it is never 
easy to get money from Congress, and he kept at it for five 

years in vain. 

It was the 3d of March, 1843. At twelve o'clock that 
night the session of Congress would end. Morse kept about 
the Senate chamber till nearly midnight, in hopes his bill 
would pass. Then he gave it up in despair and went to his 
boarding house. He was sure his little bill would not be 
thought of in the crowd of business before Congress and was 
greatly depressed in consequence. 

He came down to breakfast the next morning with a very 
sad face, hardly knowing how he was to pay his board and 
get home. He was met by a young lady, Miss Annie Ells- 
worth, who came to him with a smile. 

" Let me congratulate you, Mr. Morse," she said. 

" For what, my dear friend ? " 

" For the passage of your bill." 



222 THE MARVELS OF INVENTION 

*' What ! " he said, in great astonishment ; " the passage 
of my bill?" 

" Yes ; do you not know of it ? " 

** No ; it cannot be true ! " - 

" You came home too early last night, Mr. Morse. Your 
bill has passed, and I am happy to be the first to bring you 
the good news." 

" You give me new life, Miss Ellsworth," he said. " For 
your good news I promise you this : when my telegraph line 
is laid, you shall have the honor of selecting the first message 
to be sent over it." 

Congress had granted only thirty thousand dollars. It 

was not much, but Morse went actively to work. He wanted 

to dig a ditch to lay his pipe in, through which 

Morse^^^ ' ^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^^- ^^ §^°^ another inventor to 
help him, Ezra Cornell, who afterwards founded 
Cornell University. Mr. Cornell invented a machine which 
dug the ditch at a great rate, laid the pipe, and covered it in. 
In five minutes it laid and covered one hundred feet of pipe. 

But Cornell did not think the underground wire would 
work. 

" It will work," said Morse. "While I have been fight- 
ing Congress, men have laid short lines in England which 
work very well. What can be done there can be done here." 

For all that, it would not work. A year passed and only 
seven thousand dollars of the money were left, and all the 
wires laid were of no use. 

" If it won't go underground we must try and coax it to 
go over-ground," said Morse. 

Poles were erected ; the wire was strung on glass insu- 
lators ; it now worked to a charm. On May ii, 1844, the 
Whig National Convention at Baltimore nominated Henry 
Clay for President, and the news was sent to Washington in 




AMERICANS STORMING SAN JUAN HILL 

ITic most dramatic scene and most destructive battle of the Spanish War 



THE MARVELS OF INVENTION 



223 



all haste by the first railroad train. But the passengers were 
surprised to find that they brought stale news ; everybody 
in Washington knew it already. It had reached there an 
hour or two before by telegraph. That was a great triumph 
for Morse. The telegraph line was not then finished quite to 
Baltimore. When it reached there, on May 24th, the first 




THE GREAT EASTERN AND THE ATLANTIC CABLE' 
In 1866 this steamer was ensfaered in laying the Atlantic cable between Ireland and New Foundland 

message sent was one which Miss Ellsworth had chosen from 
the Bible "What hath God wrought?" God had wrought 
wonderfully indeed, for since then the electric wire has bound 
the ends of the earth together. 

If I should attempt to tell you about all our inventors I 
am afraid there would be no end to the story. There is 



224 THE MARVELS OF INVENTION 

almost no end to them, and many of them invented wonder- 
ful machines. I might tell you, for instance, about Thomas 
Blanchard, who invented the machine by which tacks are 
made, dropping them down as fast as a watch can tick. This 
is only one out of many of his inventions. One of them was 
a steamboat to run in shallow water, and which could go 
hundreds of miles up rivers where Fulton's steamboat would 
have run aground. 

Then there was Cyrus McCormick, who invented the 
reaping machine. When he showed his reaper at the London 
World's Fair in 1851, the newspapers made no end of fun of 
it. The London "Times" said it was a cross 
Machines between a chariot, a wheelbarrow and a flying- 

machine. But when it was put in a wheat-field 
and gathered in the wheat like a living and thinking machine, 
they changed their tune, and the "Times " said it was worth 
more than all the rest of the Exhibition. This was the first 
of the great agricultural machines. Since then hundreds have 
been made, and the old-fashioned slow hand-work in the 
fields is over. McCormick made a fortune out of his machine. 
I cannot say that of all inventors, for many of them had as 
hard a time as Morse with his telegraph. Two of them, 
Charles Goodyear and Elias Howe, came as near starving as 
Professor Morse. 

All the rubber goods we have to-day we owe to Charles 
Goodyear. Before his time India-rubber was of very little 
use. It would grow stiff in the winter and sticky in the sum- 
mer, and people said it was a nuisance. What was wanted 
was a rubber that would stand heat and cold, 'and this Good- 
vear set himself to make. 

He tried mixing sulphur with the gum, and by accident 
touched a red-hot stove with the mixture. To his delight the 
gum did not melt. Here was the secret. Rubber mixed with 



THE MARVELS OF INVENTION 225 



sulphur and exposed to heat would stand heat and cold alike. 
He had made his discovery, but it took him six years more to 
make it a success, and he never made much money from it. 
Yet everybody honors him to-day as a great inventor. 

Elias Howe had as hard a time with the sewing machine. 
For years he worked at it, and when he finished it nobody 
would buy it or use it. He went to London, 

,11 1111 1 J 1 1 Howe and the 

as Morse had done, and had the same bad luck. sewingMachine 
He had to pawn his model and patent papers 
to get home again. His wife was very sick, and he reached 
home only in time to see her die. 

Poor fellow ! life was very dark to him then. His inven- 
tion had been stolen by others, who were making fortunes oat 
of it while he was in need of bread. Friends lent him money 
and he brought suit against these robbers, but it took six 
years to win his rights in the courts. In the end he grew 
rich and gained great honor from his invention. 

There has been no man more talked of in our time than 
Thomas A. Edison. All of you must have heard of him. He 
began inventing when he was a mere boy, and has kept on 
inventing ever since. He was an American in grain, full of 
energy and genius, trying a dozen ways of making a living 
and succeeding in all. He became a telegraph operator, and 
could take messages faster than any one could send them. 

Then he began inventing, and soon showed people how 
two messages could be sent over one wire. He kept on until 
he could send sixteen messages at once over one wire. He 
made money out of his inventions, but the telegraph com- 
panies made much more. Instead of sending fifty or sixty 
words a minute, he showed them how they could send several 
thousand words a minute. 

Then he began experimenting with the electric light. He 
did not invent this, but he made great improvements in it. 



2 26 THF MARVELS OF INVENTION 

Another of the wonderful inventions of this period was the 
telephone, by whose aid we can talk with our friends a 
thousand miles away. You must often have heard a man 
shouting " Hello ! " into an instrument, and seen him put a 
sort of trumpet to his ear to catch what was said in reply. 
Just think how much time that saves to busi- 

Edison and the i , .-p, .11 , • ,1 

Tele hone ^^^^ people ! 1 he telephone was not mvented 

by Edison, but by another American named 
Alexander Bell. But Edison improved it. He added the 
"transmitter," which is used in all telephones, and is very 
important indeed. So we must give credit first to Bell and 
second to Edison for the telephone. 

Edison's most wonderful invention is the phonograph. 
This word means "sound writer." One of you may talk with 
a little machine, and the sound of your voice will make marks 
on a little roll of gelatine or tinfoil within. Then when the 
machine is set going you may hear your own voice coming 
back to you. Or by the use of a great trumpet called the 
megaphone, it may be heard all over a large room. 

The wonderful thing is that the sound of a man's voice 
may be heard long after he is dead. If they had possessed 
the phonograph in old times we might be able to hear Shake- 
speare or Julius Caesar speaking to-day. Very likely many 
persons who live a hundred or two hundred years from now 
may hear Edison's voice coming out of one of his own 
machines. Does not this seem like magic ? 

In every way this is a wonderful age of invention. Look 
at the trolley car, shooting along without any one being able 
to see what makes it move. Look at the wheels whirling and 
lights flashing and stoves heating from electric power. Steam 
was the most powerful thing which man knew a century ago. 
Electricity has taken its place as the most powerful and mar- 
velous thing we know to-day. 




ROOSEVELT'S CH AF? r^T^ ~ <=; n t 



CHAPTER XXVI 




How the Century Ended for the Unite. 

States 

VERY likely many of my young 
readers live in the city of Philadelphia, 
which was founded by William Penn 
more than two hundred years ago on 
the banks of the broad Delaware River, 
and where now many more than a mil- 
lion people make their homes. And 
many of you w^ho do not live there, 
but who love your country and are 
proud of its history, are likely to go 
there some time during your lives, to 
visit the birthplace of your noble nation. 

Have you ever thought that the United States, as an 
independent nation, was born in Philadelphia ? In that city 
stands the stately Independence Hall, in which the Declara- 
tion of Independence was made and signed. 
You may see there the famous old bell, which ^ ^ J^^ ^ ^ 

•' ' Our Nation 

rang out "Liberty throughout the land!" And 
you may stand in the room in which our grand Constitution 
was formed. So Philadelphia should be a place of pilgrimage 
to all true-hearted Americans, who wish to see where their 
country was born. 

It was such a place of pilgrimage in the year 1876. Then 
from every part of our country, from the North, the South, 



ADMIRAL GEORGE DEAVEY 



15 



227 



228 UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 

the West and the East, our people made their way in 
thousands towards that great city, which was then the proud 
centre of all American thought. A hundred years had 
passed from the time the famous Declaration was signed, and 
the Centennial Anniversary of this great event was being 
celebrated in the city which may be called the cradle of the 
American nation. 

A grand Exhibition was held. It was called a "World's 
Fai^-," for splendid objects were sent to it from all parts of the 
world, and our own country sent the best of everything it had 
to show, from Maine to California. On the 
World's Fair broad lawns of Fairmount Park many hand- 
some buildings were erected, all filled with 
objects of use or beauty, and more than ten million people 
passed through the gates, glad to see what America and the 
world had to show. 

If you wish to know what our own country displayed, I 
may say that the most striking things were its inventions, 
machines that could do almost everything which the world 
wants done. And the newest and most wonderful of all these 
things was the telephone. This magical invention was shown 
there to the people for the first time, and the first voice 
shouted " Hallo ! " over the talking wire. 

In the years that followed centennial celebrations became 
common. In 1881 the centennial anniversary of the surrender 
of Cornwallis was celebrated at Yorktown. In 1882 the bi- 
centennial (the two hundredth anniversary) of the landing of 
William Penn was celebrated at Philadelphia. A vessel that 
stood for the old ship "Welcome" sailed up the stream, and 
a man dressed like the famous old Quaker landed and was 
greeted by a number of men who took the part of Indian chiefs. 

In 1887 Philadelphia had another grand anniversary, that 
of the signing of the Constitution of the United States, which 



UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 



229 



was celebrated by magnificent parades and processions, while 
the whole city was dressed in the red, white and blue. In 
1889 New York celebrated the next grand event in the history 
of the nation, the taking of the oath by Washington, our first 
President. 

The next great anniversary was that of the discovery of 
America by Columbus, four hundred years before. This was 
celebrated by a wonderfully splendid exhibition at Chicago, 
the most beautiful that the world had ever seen. Columbus 




MEMORIAL HALL— PHILADELPHIA EXPOSITION, 1876 

landed in October, 1492, and the buildings were dedicated in 
October, 1892, but the exhibition did not take place till the 
next year. Those who saw this exhibition will never forget 
it, and very likely some of my readers were among them. Its 
buildings were like fairy palaces, so white and grand and 
beautiful ; and at night, when it was lit up by thousands of 
electric lights, the whole place looked like fairy land. The 
world will not soon see anything more beautiful. 

I cannot tell of all the exhibitions. There were others, 
at New Orleans, Atlanta, and other cities, but I think you 



230 UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 

will be satisfied with hearing about the large ones. The Cen- 
tennial at Philadelphia set the fashion. After that, cities all 
over the country Avanted to have their great fairs, and many 
of the little towns had their centennial celebrations, with music 
and parades, speeches and fireworks. 

During all this time the country kept growing. People 
crossed the ocean in millions. Our population went up, not 
like a tree growing, but like a deer jumping. In 1880 we had 
50,000,000 people. In 1900 we had half as 
p ^'^^L^tlon many more. Just think of that ! Over 25,000,- 

000 people added in twenty years ! How many 
do you think we will have when the youngest readers of this 
book get to be old men and women? I am afraid to guess. 

As our people increased in number they spread more 
widely over the country. Railroads were built everywhere, 
steamboats ran on all the streams, telegraphs and telephones 
came near to every man's front door, the post-offices spread 
until letters and newspapers and packages were carried to the 
smallest village in the land. Nobody wanted to stay at home, 
in the old fashion. People thought nothing of a journey 
across the continent or the ocean. Wherever they were they 
could talk with their friends by letter or telegraph, and they 
could go nowhere that the newspaper could not follow them. 

So the waste places of the country began rapidly to fill 
up. If you have ever seen an old-time map of our country 
you must have noticed places in the West marked "great 
desert," or "unknown territory," or by some such name. 
But people made their way into these unknown regions and 
filled them up. First they went with their families and house- 
hold goods in great wagons. Then they went far more 
swiftly in railroad trains. Here they settled down and began 
farming ; farther on, where there was not rain enough to farm, 
they raised cattle and sheep on the rich grasses ; still farther, 



UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 



2\r 



in the mountain regions, they set to work mining, getting gold, 
silver, copper, iron and coal from the hard rocks. 

Cities grew up where the Indian and the buffalo had 
roamed. The factory followed the farmer ; the engine began 
to puff its steam into the air, the wheels to turn, the machines 
to work, goods of all kinds to be made. The whole country 
became like a great hive of industry, where everybody was 
busy, and thousands of the people grew rich. 




MACHINERY HALL— CHICAGO EXPOSITION, 1893 

But all this great western country was not given up to 
the farmer, the miner and the wood-chopper. There were 
places which nature had made beautiful or wonderful or grand, 
and these were kept as places for all the people to visit. One 
of these was the beautiful Yosemite Valley, in California ; 
another was the wonderful Yellowstone Park, with its mar- 
velous spouting springs ; others were the groves of giant 
trees ; still others were great forests, which the government 
told the wood-choppers to keep out of, and set aside for the 
good or the pleasure of all the people of the land. 



232 UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 

Some of you may ask, what became of the old people of 
the country — the Indians, who were spread all over the West? 
There were hundreds of tribes of them, and many of them 
were bold and brave, and when they saw the white men push- 
ing into their country they fought fiercely for their homes. But 
they could not stand before the guns of the pioneers and the 
cannon of the soldiers, and in time they were all forced to 
submit. Then places were set aside for them 
*u \ A^ ^ and they were made to live in them. The 

the Indians -^ 

Indians were not always treated well. They 
were robbed and cheated in a hundred ways. But that, I 
hope, is all over now, for they are being well cared for and 
educated, and they seem likely, before many years, to become 
good and useful citizens of our country. 

Now I have another story to tell. Our Civil War, which 
you have read about, ended in 1865. For thirty-three years 
after that — one-third of a century — we were at peace at home 
and abroad, and our country had the wonderful growth of 
which you have just read. Then, in 1898, almost at the end 
of the century, war came again. By good luck, it was not a 
big war this time, and it was one I can tell you about in a 
few words. 

It was pity and charity that brought us into this war. 
South of Florida is the large and fertile island of Cuba, which 
had long belonged to Spain, and whose people had been very 
badly treated. At length they said they could stand it no 
longer, so they took their guns, left their homes, and went to 
war with the soldiers of Spain. For two years they fought 
bravely. Their old men, and their women and children, who 
had stayed at home, helped them all they could ; so the Span- 
iards drove these from their homes into the cities, and left 
them there with hardly anything to eat Thousands of these 
poor wretches starved to death, 



UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 



^ZZ 



You may be sure that our people thought this very 
wicked. They said that it ought to be stopped ; but Spain 
would not do what they wished. Then they sent food to the 
starving people. Some of it got to them and some of it 
was used by others. Everybody in our country felt very 
badly to see this terrible affair going on at our very doors, 
and the government 
was told that it ought 
to take some action. 
What the government 
did was to send one 
of its war vessels, the 
' ' Maine, ' ' to the harbor 
of Havana, the capital 
of Cuba. 

Then something 
took place that would 
have made almost any 
country go to war. 
One dark night, while 
the "Maine" floated 
on the waters of the 
harbor, and nearly all 
her crew were fast 
asleep in their berths, 
a terrible explosion 
was heard under her, ""^a dancing girls, hawah 

and the good vessel was torn nearly in half In a minute 
she sank into the muddy bottom of the harbor, and hundreds 
of her sleeping crew were drowned. Only the captain and 
some of the officers and men escaped alive. 

I fancy all of you must know how angry our peo[)le felt 
when they heard of this dreadful event. You were angry 




234 UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 

yourselves, no doubt, and said that the Spaniards had done 
this and ought to be punished by having Cuba taken from 
them. I do not think there were many Americans who did 
not feel like taking revenge for our poor murdered sailors. 

War soon came. In April, 1898, the Congress declared 
war against Spain and a strong fleet of iron-clad ships was 
sent to Cuba. An army was gathered as quickly as possible, 
and the soldiers were put on board ship and sailed away to 
the south. There was a Spanish fleet in the harbor of Santiago 
de Cuba and an American fleet outside keeping the ships of 
Spain like prisoners in the harbor ; so the sol- 
D ^lared ^^'" diers were sent to that place, and it was not 
long before an army was landed and was march- 
ing towards the city of Santiago. I am glad to say that the 
fighting did not last very long. There was a bold charge up 
hill by the Rough Riders and others in the face of the Span- 
ish guns, and the Spanish army was driven back to the city. 
Here they were shut up and soon surrendered, and the war 
in Cuba was at an end. 

But the iron-clad ships in the harbor were not given up. 
Not they ; they had gone to the fishes before that. On the 
3d of July they made a brave rush for liberty. They came 
out at full speed where our great ships lay waiting, and soon 
there was one of the strangest fights that had ever been seen. 
The Spanish ships rushed through the waters near the coast, 
firing as they fled. After them came the American ships 
at full speed, firing as they followed. But not many of the 
Spanish balls touched the American ships while the great guns 
of the Americans raked the Spaniards fore and aft. 

Soon some of their ships were on fire and had to be run 
ashore. In an hour or two the chase was at an end and the 
fine Spanish fleet was sunk and burning, with hundreds of its 

crew kilkd, while- on the Am^dcaa ships only one man had 



UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 



235 



been killed. It was a wonderful flight and fight I should 
te!l you more about it, only that I have another story of the 
same kind to relate. 

Far away from Cuba, on the other side of the world, in the 
broad Pacific Ocean, near the coast of China, is a great group 
of islands called the Philippines, which had long belonged to 
Spain. Here, in the harbor of Manila, the capital of the 




A TYPICAL MORO VILLAGE. SOUTHERN PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

islands, was a Spanish fleet. There was an American fleet in 
one of the harbors of China, under the command of Commo- 
dore George Dewey. And as soon as war had been declared 
Dewey was ordered to go to Manila and sink or take the 
Spanish fleet. 

Dewey was a man who thought it his duty to obey orders. 
He had been told to sink or take the Spanish fleet, and that was 



236 UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 

what he meant to try his best to do. Over the waters sped 
his ships, as swiftly as steam could carry them, and into the 
harbor of Manila they went at midnight while deep darkness 
lay upon the waters. It was early morning of the ist of May 
when the American ships rounded up in front of the city and 
came in sight of the Spanish fleet. This lay across the mouth 
of a little bay, with forts to guard it on the land at each side. 

It was a great danger which Commodore Dewey and his 

bold followers faced. Before them lay the Spanish ships and 

the forts. There were torpedo boats which might rush out 

and sink them. There were torpedoes under the waters which 

might send the flagship itself to the bottom. 

ewey in Some men would have stopped and felt their 

vay, but George Dewey was not that kind of a 

man. Without stopping for a minute after his long journey 

from China, he dashed on with the fleet and ordered his men 

to fire. Soon the great guns were roaring and the air was 

full of fire and smoke. 

Round and round went the American ships, firing as they 
passed. Every shot seemed to tell. It was not long before 
some of the Spanish ships were blazing, while hardly a ball 
had touched an American hull. After an hour or two of this 
hot work Dewey drew out and gave his men their breakfast. 
Then back he came and finished the job. When he was done, 
the whole Spanish fleet was sunk and burning, Avith hundreds 
of its men dead and wounded, while not an American ship 
was badly hurt and not an American sailor was killed. There 
had hardly been so one-sided a battle since the world began. 

There, I have, as I promised, told you in few words the 
story of the war. Soon after a treaty of peace was signed and 
all was at an end. The brave Dewey was made an admiral 
and was greatly honored by the American people, 



UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 237 

If you should ask me what we gained from the war, I 
would answer that we gained in the first place what the war 
was fought for, the freedom of Cuba from the cruel rule of 
Spain. But we did not come out of it without something for 
ourselves. We obtained the fertile island of Porto Rico in 
the West Indies and the large group of the Philippine Islands, 
near the coast of Asia. These last named came as the prize 
of Dewey's victory, but I am sorry to say that there was a war 
with the people themselves before the United States got pos- 
session. During the war with Spain we obtained another 
fine group of islands, that known as Hawaii, in the Pacific 
Ocean. You can see from this that our country made a wide 
spread over the seas at the end of the nineteenth century. 
The winning of all these islands was an event of the greatest 
importance to the United States. It gave this what We 
country a broad foothold on the seas and a new Gained From 
outlook over the earth. Some of the proud **^® ^^^ 
nations of Europe had looked on this country as an American 
power only, with no voice in world affairs. But when Uncle 
Sam set his left foot on the Hawaiian Islands, in the Central 
Pacific, and his right foot on the Philippine Islands, near the 
coast of Asia, these powers of Europe opened their eyes and 
began to get new ideas about the great republic of the West. 
It was plain that the United States had become a world power, 
and that when the game of empire was to be played the 
western colossus must be asked to take a hand. 

This was seen soon after, when China began to murder 
missionaries and try to drive all white people from its soil. 
For the first time in history the United States joined hands 
with Europe in an Old World quarrel, and it was made 
evident that the world could not be cut up and divided among 
the powers without asking permission from Uncle Sam. But 
fortunately Uncle Sam wants to keep out of war. 



*254 UNITED STATES AT END OF CENTURY 

And now we are at the end of our long journey. We 
have traveled together for more than four hundred years, from 
the time of Columbus to the present day, observing the inter- 
esting facts of our country's history, and following its growth 
from a tiny seed planted in the wilderness to a giant tree 
whose branches are beginning to overshadow the earth. 

Here we must bid good-bye to our country's history. 
We have read about what our fathers did in the times that 
are no more. We have learned something of what has been 
, ^, taking;' place during^ our own lives. There is a 

A New History ^^ . . , ^ . . . . 

new history before us m which we shall live and 
act and of which our own doings will form part. In the time 
to come each of my youthful readers will help make the his- 
tory of this country, and you will see its events pass before 
your eyes like the pictures on a panorama which slowly 
unrolls and reveals to you its hidden secrets. Let us hope 
that the pictures to be seen will be those of peace and happi- 
ness, not those of war and ruin. 



*This folio has Tjeen increased so as to Include the full page Half-tooe lUvjstrations »n^ Lithograph Plates 
the bs4»l{ which have not been before numberecl. 



CT 11 1901 



